Stu Fone offers an exclusive appraisal of Fantastic Plastic’s all-new resin Fireball XL5.
Blasting straight from the small screen, UK-based Anderson Entertainment (of Thunderbirds TV fame) has joined forces with the USA’s Fantastic Plastic, to produce a stunning new-tool, 1/288 Fireball XL5 spaceship kit, in cast and 3D-printed resin. For those of us who weren’t around in the 1960s, Fireball XL5 was the titular vessel in a puppet-TV series devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, running for 39 episodes in 1962-63. The craft, which has a separate nose section – called ‘Fireball Junior’ – was commanded by the World Space Control’s Col Steve Zodiac and famously launched along a mile-long rail, aided by a rocket-powered sled.
Above: The main fuselage comes in two sections to maximise detail, with each split into halves.
Above: Almost a kit in its own right, the rocket sled – which serves as a stand for the finished model – comprises 14 well-cast parts.
This all-new product comprises 33 conventionally cast and 3D-printed resin parts plus vac-form canopies, with the rocket being built from 19; the sled, with its twin triple-mounted rocket boosters, takes up the remainder. Although this could easily be classified as a limited-run kit, …
