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Old 09-28-2017, 12:49 PM
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BEC BEC is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Auburn, Washington
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Quote:
Originally Posted by blackshire
His attitude toward his S.P.E.V. kit sounds like Tom Cruise's "dis-ownership" of the movie "Legend," which--considering how both the kit and the movie have become well-loved over the years--is a bit strange. The S.P.E.V. is actually two kits in one; itself, and a Thor-Agena B (which Estes always printed incorrectly as "Thor Agena-B," see: http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/no...a/68estp16.html ), "plus extra parts."


Based on some of the other things Bill has told me, the S.P.E.V. being essentially another kit with extra parts (the ones, presumably, that had been over ordered and were then excess to need) is not surprising. He has mentioned on more than one occasion that he tried to use existing parts whenever possible in a new design. Even in the Alpha's case, every part in its original incarnation was already used somewhere else in the Estes line save the fin pattern sheet and the instructions.

Quote:
...So in addition to the latest iteration of the Alpha, the packaging of all of the new kits--with its "half 'n half" skill level/level nomenclature--will also be collectible (shades of the artist Pablo Picasso signing his utilities checks and other payments' checks, whose recipients never cashed them, but sold them instead, because his signature was worth more as a collectible item)... :-)


Well....at least for those who want to collect every single packaging variation of a given model, I suppose so. I strongly doubt that was the intent behind it.

To get back somewhat to topic - I finally got the white paint on my SBB yesterday. I hope the weather holds out long enough for me to shoot the red tomorrow or Saturday so that it can be finished before our next club launch and so that I can get some pictures.

But the weather forecast is not encouraging - after getting to 80 today it looks like it's going to be wet, windy and struggling to get to 60 for the next several days. *sigh*
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