Project POUNCE

by John Givre

birthlink@optonline.net

SCALE: 1/53

INITIAL RELEASE:1954

MEDIUM: Styrene

RARITY: (2)

Here are some photos of a modeling project from a few years ago based on the USAF's proposed PROJECT POUNCE, basically, photographic F-94 UFO chasers!

The jet is a Revell reissue of their old 1/53 Lockheed F-94C Starfire.  The home-made markings are from an air-to-air photo I have of a  -94C test-firing its rocket pods. I opened the wheel wells of this venerable old kit and added boards and some door detail.

The UFO is, of course, the Glencoe reissue of the [Lindberg] UFO kit we all built in the mid '50's. I decided to build it with a "closed" cockpit for several reasons.  First, the little glow-in-the-dark half-pilot figure is cheesy, and not even vintage - the original figure from the kit of my boyhood was molded in the same silver plastic as the rest of the ship.  Second, the Starfire is in box scale of 1/53 and really wouldn't fit with my 1/48 or 1/72 collection, so making the saucer canopy all-metal blurs the ship's size relative to the Starfire. This way I have a neat little diorama with two models, and no 'splainin' to do about their scales (Although I suppose the alien pilot could have been a 10-foot-tall giant compared to the 6-foot-tall crew of the Starfire...).