NASA B-25

[Atlantis]

Originally an Army surplus B-25 used as a flying testbed by the NACA, this aircraft came in to the Marshall Space Flight   Center's possession in 1960 and was used as a camera platform starting with the ill-fated Mercury-Redstone 1 mission and was retired shortly after STS-3's landing at White Sands Missile range. Not long afterward, the aircraft was turned over to the US Space and Rocket Center for display, where it spent 7 years in the rocket park before being turned over to Aviation Challenge in 1991. It stood as a gate guardian there and rapidly deteriorated in the Alabama climate, it even endured a tornado in the spring of 2006 and suffered moderate damage. There were plans in place to restore the plane, but at the time, other projects took precedence, such as the restoration of the Saturn V vibration test article. Furthermore, there was simply nowhere to put it for the longest, what with the main museum area being used to house traveling exhibits  and the Davidson Center being mostly full. Finally, restoration began in April 2011, with plans to house it in the George Mueller  Center for Space Exploration, aka the Orbiter Protective Enclosure, that had been erected on the formed site of the SA-500D test article to house the Space Shuttle Enterprise in 2012.

This it as it looked in 2010





As a side note, this was one of the first plastic models that I had built back when I was 9 or 10 (It looked terrible). This is the second time I've redone it. I'm looking to buy a brand new B-25 kit and do it as a pristine version of this plane.

[Tophe]

Wonderful like asymmetrical: port jet, propeller starboard...