Bell X-1 (1947)

Scale: 1/32
Initial Release: 1988
Medium: Styrene
Kit Rarity: 2

About the Design

Developed by Bell Aircraft under contract with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and the U.S. Army Air Force, the X-1 was the world's first supersonic aircraft.  Designed along the lines of a .50-caliber bullet with wings perpendicular to its fuselage (It would be several more years before American designers would perfect the art of creating drag-reducing swept-back wings), the X-1 had as its power plant a Reaction Motors 6,000-pound-thrust rocket engine.

Launched from the belly of a specially modified B-29 Superfortress bomber, the first X-1-- nicknamed "Glamorous Glennis" -- and piloted by Capt. Charles "Chuck" Yeager, passed Mach 1 on October 14, 1947.

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About the Kit

With Chuck Yeager finally getting his due thanks to Tom Wolfe's 1979 best-seller The Right Stuff (followed by the 1983 movie directed by Philip Kaufman), Revell decided to get on the "Chuck"-wagon by releasing several aircraft kits in the late '80s under the banner "Yeager Super Fighters."   Of course, the X-1 was an experimental aircraft, not a fighter, but damn the semantics; the Yeager connection was just too good to resist.

The Bell X-1 was re-released by Revell in 2003.

This kit was built from an original 1988 issue.