Revell 1/200
Boeing SST Supersonic Clipper

Background

It is a bit scary to realize that Revell is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Those of us who grew up on these fantastic kits were forever smitten with the modeling bug. I couldn't wait to get my allowance or earn some money cutting grass so I could venture down to the store and pick up a new subject.

In these early days of Revell, many of their kits were 'box scale' meaning that the kit was scaled to fit inside a standard sized retail box that was retailer friendly. Consequently, you'll see some really odd scales for these subjects, but in many cases, these are still the only kits available of these aircraft.

As part of the 50th anniversary celebration, Revell released ten classic kits from its vast archives. This is one of those ten.

The Kit

I can't believe I have this kit in my hands! By the time I took an interest in this subject, the kit had already become a pricey collector's item. Released in 1968, this kit represents the concept aircraft being developed by Boeing for the USA's Supersonic Transport (SST).

Boeing and the government toyed with different SST designs in the 1950s, but when Bristol Aeroplane and SUD Aviation teamed up on a Mach 2 class transport called Concorde in the early 1960s, the Kennedy Administration pushed forward a leap-frog design for a Mach 2.7-3.0 class SST rather than build an aircraft with similar performance. This Supersonic Clipper continued development until it was cancelled in 1971, a victim of environmental lobbyists and other assorted politics.

The kit represents one of the Boeing designs, specifically the Model 2707-100. It featured variable geometry wings to provide better flight characteristics at high speed as well as during takeoff and landing.

The kit is molded in white styrene and presented on six parts trees, plus a single parts tree molded in blue styrene for the display stand.

As you can see in the photos, there are actually two aircraft in this kit, one in high-speed cruise configuration, and one in landing configuration.

Markings are provided for Pan American Airways as this was the 'international carrier' and launch customer for this ambitious design.

Conclusions

I had heard that Revell was releasing some of its classics and the teasers in their 2006 catalog confirmed their upcoming release. On a recent trip on Hannant's website, I spotted that these kits were now available in the UK. Since these were coming out of Revell/Germany, I wondered if the number of these kits available would dwindle by the time they reached North America. According to my local hobby retailer, precious few of these kits did in fact make it across the pond, so if you see one on the shelf of your local shop, you might want to snag it before you see these join the ranks of the collectables on eBay.

I was even more surprised to see that very few of these SST kits made it over to the US. I am quite happy that I ordered mine from Hannants!