1:72 Boeing 747 SCA with Space Shuttle

The idea for this project started long ago, when I was a kid.. I saw the Boeing 747 with Shuttle on it's back making a flyby over the Dutch coast and heading it's way to Heathrow, during a visit to Europe trip in the eighties.
I was immediately impressed, what a beautiful piece of engineering.. I wanted a model of it.
My parents gave me this poster which I still have. 

So the idea of having a (big) model of this was always in my head... until 2017.

Just as the damaged Skyland 1:72 KLM 747, I found a seller of an old 1:72 Skyland Qantas Boeing 747-100, also damaged. So for 40€ it was mine, and I immediately thought of making my wish come true: I'm going to do a makeover and turn this old queen into a big beautiful B747 SCA with Space Shuttle on top! 

I immediately took my Revell 1:72 Space Shuttle kit, taped it roughly together to see what the final construction would look like. Here's my girlfriend holding the Shuttle in place so I could take a picture of it 

And here's the queen next to her restored sister 

First I started an inspection of the model 

Another 1m x 1m project 

But scratched on several places. 

...severe scratches... 

...and heavy damage to the underbelly!  

First I repaired that nasty damage by gluing the cracks together, little by little and with a clamp 

Several drops of superglue, and let dry, then repeat for the next part. This way I could 'guide' the repair 

 

After the repair I started sanding. Lots of sanding.. 

 

 

...until it was ready for a primer coat later. 

In the meantime I searched the Internet for the Transport Wings AIM72 conversion set no. TWC72001 ; that's a conversion set for making the carrying construction for the Space Shuttle on a Boeing 747 

Contents: white metal carrying construction.. 

..and vacform endplate fins... 

..and a decal sheet for a NASA 747.

Somewhere I knew I couldn't find this set anymore, as AIM72 is out of business.. and that's right, nowhere available anymore. 

So back to some evenings Internet surfing. I found several highly detailed pictures and drawings of the construction, like: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Wikimedia



All very nice and detailed, but look at the amount of detail.. How could I ever reproduce something like that from scratch?

And, from what material does it have to be to support a 1:72 Revell Space Shuttle? 

One thing I can scratchbuild myself: the endplate fins. I had some measurements and enough sample pictures to make those from Plasticard, so I did: 

 

 

As you can see, first I made them with rounded edges.. I don't remember why i did that, but it sure is incorrect.
So I corrected them again, you will see in later pictures. 

Meanwhile I kept searching the Internet for all kind of info, pictures and details of the Boeing 747 SCA.

I came to the site of DrawDecal who makes excellent decal sets in almost all available sizes, and I found a 1:72 decal set for the NASA Boeing 747-100 'N905NA' SCA 🙂!!

So I ordered this set, again a step forward in my long lasting project.

This is the set 

 

 

Looks promising! Even the barely visible 'American' decal is present. (The N905NA is an ex- American Airlines 747, transformed into a SCA. In the hurry from the Space Shuttle project they removed the American logo but it kept visible..).

So on with the project! 

I had a Space Shuttle to build. A 1:72 scale Space Shuttle, quite big.

I didn't spent much effort to the flightdeck, as you can barely see any detail through the little thick transparent windows 

Much darkness in there.. 

 

As it rides piggyback on the 747, it's very 'static': no flaps,gear or protruding elements or whatsoever. Easy for buiding this kit, just gluing it closed and filling and sanding the seems and gaps.

But 1 little (ehm...BIG) problem: the SCA Shuttles always carries a streamlined cone on the tail to avoid air resistance around the Shuttle exhaust.
Source: NASA 

I know this cone is provided with the 1:144 Revell Boeing 747 SCA kit 

...but I need that part twice as big!

That is available..
...for a little $160! No way.

So, back to the pc and the Internet, searching for info, pictures and plans if possible. It will be a new project scratchbuilding I think. 

After a long search collecting data, i found a detailed drawing of the cone 🙂!

I enlarged the drawing until it fitted the size of the 1:72 Space Shuttle fuselage half so I knew it was the right size.

Then I started making ribs for the structure from plasticard.

I miss some photo's during this process, but here you see what I fabricated 

 

 

 

After the rib structure was completed, i started cutting polystyrene strips and gluing them to the ribs so I got a rough covered structure 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When that looked good enough I started adding lots of putty on the coverage. LOTS of putty.. 

 

 

 

Ok, so A LOT of sanding later... 

...it's starting... 

..to look like something 🙂.. 

..and it saves me $160! But as you can see, there is still extra filling and sanding to do to get the surface of the cone smoother. But it's a start! 

 

During the build of my Space Shuttle I was still searching the Internet for a solution for a carrying construction.

And after intensive searching I found a site called Shapeways, a forum for 3D printed things. From jewelry to modelling, a lot of stuff to explore there!

And behold, there was someone offering a 1:72 Shuttle carrier set, consisting of these parts 

It is a strange kind of plastic; transparent, very hard but also very brittle.. So I have to handle it carefully 

 

And it's very detailed 

 

So time to calculate the exact position of the construction on the 747 fuselage.. Not an easy job, as the fuselage has no reference points at all 

 

Drawed the drilling points for the holes on the fuselage, and positioned the front strut after that.

The aft struts on the fuselage had to wait for a while, because I didn't know the exact position of the Shuttle. So back to project Shuttle. 

I found a detailed decal set of Shuttle tiles on eBay, made by Warbird decals. I ordered that set, and man, what a lot of decals! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wow.. another new project in this huge project...

Well, first I sanded the shuttle as smooth as possible, so I could give it a primer coat.

I used the Tamiya primer spray can, as this Shuttle is quite a beast 

After that, a white spray because most of the shuttle is white. I sprayed it outside in a box 

And this is the result. 

 

So I started applying decals.

First the underside 

Preparing the next tile decal, huge 

 

Looks nice.. 

 

And surprise!

Almost all those tiles need these little decals, yes you heard me, almost all those tiles... It's white text that NASA numbers its tiles with 

To be placed on these tiles 

Like this.. 

Can you imagine that it took me DAYS to accomplish only half of it? I only applied on places where you see the tiles best, the rest is useless. I was done with it 

I started to notice with the other decals that they didn't fit the model well.. like the tail 

...and the nose section.. 

The engine section cost me half a bottle of decal setting solution, the decals just won't fit very well and cracked at edges etc. 

I was not satisfied. Something was wrong.. 

Ok, back to the carrying construction, let the decals be for now.

I calculated and drilled holes for the aft struts on the fuselage, and it was time for the first 'real' fit of the Shuttle onto the 747!

I added some Tamiya tape to the struts as they're not glued or something.

It looks very impressive 

 

 

 

A 1:72 Tiger Moth for scale comparison.

Well, that's a positive thing, the fit of the fragile 3D printed struts looks good.

Back to the decal project. 

I started doing research of these decals. And what do you think..

-My wrong; they're made for the Monogram space shuttle, not the Revell.

-The tiles are too big in scale for a 1/72 Shuttle..

-My (BIG) wrong 2: I forgot to FIRST paint the wings and body leading edges grey and black!! O noooo...

-And.. the decals become very fragile after a while. If you don't seal them quickly with varnish after drying, they start to come loose...

Like this 

I continued very carefully with the nose, because I wanted to apply a first layer of varnish for protection.

But the nose became a mess.. Decals are not meant for this model, so I started applying extra pieces of tile decal. Bad result 

Look, no leading edge decals on the wings available.. How I'm going to paint that.. 

And the most ugly part of this decal adventure are the black text decals for the white tiles... REALLY out of proportion, and not real 

 

So I carefully started scratching some of the black text of the white tile decals, to make the text 'thinner'.

Everything went worse.. now I see dust from sanding inside the cockpit windows!!

This was just a setback. 

I want another solution, this is becoming more and more a disaster.

so I searched further on the Internet, and I found another Shuttle tile manufacturer: Steven Jochums from LakeCountrySpacePort.

Brilliant!! A very dedicated man to everything that has to do with space, NASA, Shuttle etc. Very kind and helpful, and, my saviour for this project..

As he prints real decals photo-like, so the real deal!
Those tiles are much better, with a very clear manual and Steven is very helpful in everything. From ordering questions to advice.

So I ordered his decals. 

With the decals I ordered this kit 

I also ordered this 3D Shuttle cockpit windows set 

And now comes an 'Ouch!'-moment..

Take a last look at my old Space Shuttle... 

 

The Piper cub for scale 

 

 

...because this is the last time you see it with these wrong decals! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A last photo session, and after that I scratched all the decals off the Shuttle...

And now it's white again 

 

Clean again for the next decal job, and now FIRST spraying a grey leading edge to the wings and black edges on nose and tail 😉 

But back to the 747.

I sanded and filled seems of the 747, until it was smooth as peach skin... at least, I thought.

As the NASA 747 N905NA is a kind of bare metal-like (not as shiny as real bare metal), it is a kind of project to get that American Airlines look. The fuselage is different colours metal, from aluminium to chrome like plating.

To get that look i decided to buy 3 cans of Tamiya gloss black spray, that's the best primer for metal surfaces.

So on a calm day I sprayed the behemoth outside gloss black (Tamiya spray is good quality but smells heavily) 

 

 

After drying, it was ready for an inspection inside 

 

 

But, the horror... I sanded way to heavily!! 

 

So.. back to sanding. Again.

This project is getting frustrating...

So I waited a week or 2, and sanded the 747 3 more times.

And sprayed it gloss black again.

Not every scratch disappeared, but it's almost smooth now. I'm done with sanding this plane. 

After a week or 2 later, I found new energy to give this project a fresh try.

Time for metal-looks 🙂!

I bought several different colors of metal spray: Tamiya silver leaf, Tamiya gloss aluminium, Tamiya polished steel and a big spray can gloss aluminium from an unknown brand, but for plastics.



I first tested on several pieces of plastic all kind of layers, and finally I found a nice base American Airlines like coat for the 747.

First gloss black, then gloss aluminium. 

 

..and finally silver leaf. When it's dry, it looks great 

The yellow Tamiya tape is for scribing the panel lines, which are visible on the N905NA 

 

Scribing a lot of long panel line 

 

Meanwhile I copied the DrawDecal AA striping and carrying construction plates decals on paper, so I can calculate:

-if the decals come in line with my drilled holes for the aft struts

-where some panel lines end according to the blue-white-red striping

-where I can put little marks on the semi gloss metal fuselage, almost no reference points..



I applied the paper-decals to the fuselage 

 

 

 

 

 

I wanted to do a test fit with the Shuttle on the 747.

I noticed that the rear struts became 'wobbly', it was not a nice fit in the pre-drilled holes.

Meanwhile, the front strut broke... I forced it a little to hard in the pre-drilled holes.

I decided to strengthen the fragile plastic strut with iron rod, this way it also helps to have better grip on the Shuttle.

Here you see the repaired and strengthened strut: 

Also for the back struts, strengthened them.

And what do you think.. the horror..

I placed the Shuttle on the 747. It held quite good. I wanted to check the wobbliness, I reached out to move the Shuttle a little..

And I bumped the Shuttle with my hand. The front strut broke again. on 2 places, i could just catch the Shuttle, but now the struts are a mess. So that's why this project is on hold since 2018.. 

But now, in 2022, I found the energy to give this unique project a retry.

I dusted of the 747, and decided to give the wings, tail and nose cone their grey colors.
I found this revell 747 SCA manual on the internet and use this as a guide for painting. 

First I taped the fuselage and engines with plastic bags so I can spray the wings with primer. 

 

Looks better and smooth. 

After that I removed the plastic bag part where the strut plates are positioned.
These strut plates are provided with the decal sheet, but I don't want color difference so i decided to paint the wings, tail, plates and nose cone myself. 

 

A lot of Tamiya tape is used to mask everything. 

 

 

 

 

And after spraying it looks good. 

 

 

Ok, a nice update for my 747 SCA project.
I contacted Chris Rodak from Titan Model Kits, a paradise for the 1;72 exotic rare big scale airliners enthusiasts like me!
I asked him if it's possible to order 1:72 B747-100 flap track fairings, a landing gear, 4 JTD9 engines and a new Shuttle carrier construction.
Chris is a very kind and helpful man, so no problem. Now I can finally make a static 747 model with detailed gear and a better and sturdier carrier construction. 

Here you can see all the parts. Compliments Chris for the safe and secure package the parts came in, nothing damaged! (see the protective foam on the sharp engine pylons) 

A much stronger 3D printed carrier construction. Chris added some spare parts 😉 

The nose wheel bay, gear, wheels and doors 

And an extra vacformed transparent cockpit windows part! Tempting to make a flightdeck (which will be available later).
For now I'm not sure if I will use it.  

3D printed JTD9 engines in 1 piece, only the fan blades are a separate part 

The engines look great, much better and detailed than the ones on the Skyland model.  

 

The fan blade parts 

The main gear bays 

The main gear and wheels 

And the main gear wheel bay doors. These parts will add some nice detail to my model! 

I also bought a resin tow tug kit, used for B747's 

wanted to find out how to fit the gear parts in a hollow inflight desktop model which the 747SCA is; it's a Skyland desktop model for Flight Agencies, so this will be a challenge to give it a strong supported landing gear.

First impression how it roughly looks with a gear. 

Before I start cutting and drilling in my fresh painted 747SCA model, I decided to test this first on a heavily wing-damaged 1:72 Skyland KLM 747-400 model which I want to repair some day. 

 

 

As you can see, extra damage from a tried out landing gear placement will do not much harm to this model...

Also a dry fit here: 

There is no reference at all on the smooth fuselage to start outlining gear bays or doors..

So I started with drawing the doors sections in scale 1:72 from drawings I found online, thereby using the 3D printed gear parts. 

 

 

A lot of test fitting 

 

Now place these on the model and cut the outlines on the fuselage. 

 

Ok, time to remove the doors.

I did this with cutting and drilling; the doors were not reusable after this but that doesn't matter as Click2Detail provides these doors with the set. 

Surprise! As you can see, there's thick reinforcement plastic in the wing-fuselage section.

Ok, this will take some time to remove.. 

Also removing the wing bay doors 

It starts getting uglier.. this takes rough treatment! I'm a little worried to do this on the SCA 747 later.. 

We need a bigger drill! 

 

We're getting somewhere. On with the other bay doors 

Ok, time for the first test fit of the bays.

Note: this took a lot of fitting - sanding - fitting - cutting and sanding -fitting again etc. 

Second bay didn't fit.

It takes a special angled movement to get the bay under the wing door opening. With 1 bay no problem, enough space, but adding the second bay isn't so easy.

You can't make the movement because the first bay gets in the way.

So it looks like this: 

After some research I solved this problem by removing the curved lower bay doors.

Now it fits 

 

Test fit the gear in the bays 

Great! But what a mess, I hope my SCA 747 survives this treatment..

Should have been better to do this in first place, before painting etc.

But this gear wasn't available 5 years ago.



Ok, for the nose gear bay the same treatment.

Also reinforcement to be found here, this time for the fuselage strength 

During all this I saw that the fuselage line wasn't exactly in the middle! So I stopped cutting and measured the exact middle of the fuselage first with a flexible steel wire 

After that continued drilling the outlines, and cutting the doors afterwards 

Test fit of the nose wheel bay 

With gear 

 

Mmm... Nose gear seems too big. But I have no other reference to measure this.. We will see.

Now test fit with all gears 

Looks good. A 1:72 figure for scale 

And the inevitable Piper Cub for scale 

What a massive gear this is in real life.

Last very careful test fit on it's wheels (nose gear wouldn't stay in place) 

About the Space Shuttle.. it has had some setbacks in this project, like bad decals, bad fitting parts, problems with the fit on the 747 etc.

A scratchbuilt tail cone, lot's of sanding etc.

So, time for the ultimate disaster... it 'crashed' from my workbench on the ground due to one moment of inattention, my fault.

My desk chair turned as I stood up, and bumped the Columbia to the ground.

This is the damage: 

..and the worst, my painstakingly fabricated tail cone shattered.

 

 

 

 

 

The tail cone is beyond repair; it consisted of all the small pieces of sheet styrene, al lot of filler and about 5 layers of white lacquer.  

So...

After 5 minutes of silence, I decided to take a drastic step in this project: a complete replacement of this Shuttle.

Why? Several reasons:

-I have a new Monogram Shuttle kit, which is more realistic shaped. The Revell Shuttle is lesser quality, raised and too big shaped tiles, and heavy!

-The tail cone was not perfect, it had bumps and it was not smooth. And a little too big..

-The already drilled holes in the upper fuselage of the 747 (for the struts) didn't align straight with the Shuttle strut-holes. A big problem!

-The Monogram Shuttle is a new kit, so a fresh start is possible for paint job + decals, and the kit is light weight which is a big advantage!  

So I must use the Accurate Model Parts flight deck windows, no problem

I also need a new tail cone... and no, I'm not going to scratch build a new cone.

This time I will buy it, from Click2Detail / Titan Model Kits. A correct sized, ready to use 3D printed tail cone.



I contacted Chris from Titan Model Kits and ordered the tail cone, and... 2 Boeing 747-100 flightdecks +2 APU exhausts.

One for the 747 SCA + one for the 1:72 B747SP Sofia project 

 

2 Weeks later the package arrived, with the tail cone 

 

 

 

The flightdeck 

And the APU exhaust 

I first thought: why not scrap the old tail cone from the Revell shuttle, and see if the new cone fits smoothly? Just try, who knows.

First a dry fit, pushed it carefully over the damaged cone 

Mm.. I will give it a try, but you can see quite different shapes so a smooth fit will be a challenge.

 

I started removing the old cone 

 

..and we're back where it once started.

As I don't want to start scratch building again, I went back to my initial plan of using the new Monogram Shuttle kit (which has new and correct engine covers).

Bye bye Revell Shuttle, you've done great but time for replacement. 

Now all the kit parts are still fresh and easy to correct, I decided to start with the windows from the Monogram Shuttle.

I don't know if I already earlier showed the pictures of me preparing the new Accurate Window parts for the Revell Shuttle, as this topic is starting to get huge with everything I did until now.

So to be sure, this is the set: 

I don't have a photo from the untouched new set, but it consists of thin sheet styrene pre-cut windows + frames: 

3 Right sides and 3 left sides, and the upper fuselage flight deck windows.

The idea is to pre-paint and cut the left and right frames, and glue these in layers so you get realistic thick Shuttle windows 

 

This time I will also use the new more realistic Shuttle tile decal sets, which has a correct sized and placed windows-frame decal.

So I'm going to use a copy of this decal as an example for the correct placement on the kit 

 

I sprayed most of the frames black, with some grey and red parts.

As I'm making the first Columbia ferry flight, the windows then had grey and red parts in it.

After that I bended the parts in angles to match the shape of the nose 

 

Dry fit all the parts together (5 layers thick) 

This will definitely add more realism to the Shuttle! 

Back to the Monogram kit.

I first filled the ugly wrong shaped kit windows with a piece of sheet styrene, filled and sanded it smooth so the Shuttle-nose has a closed smooth surface to start with.

Then I used part of the stencil mask to trace the correct windshield outlines on the surface 

 

Look at the old window outlines... You did a terrible job with this part of the kit Monogram! 

I used NASA-images which I found online, and tried to get the correct angle and place. Took me some time, but I think this comes really close to the original 

 

 

 

After this, I marked the window frame outline with a pencil so I know exactly what part to remove. 

I started drilling holes on the outlines 

After drilling 3 holes I needed to remove the molten plastic on the drill, so it took some time.. 

Both parts removed: 

Sanding the edges smooth 

And test fitting.

Well, it's starting to look like something. Still a long way to go, I'll keep you updated!