Introduction

By 1999, a human colony had been built on the Moon (you remember, right?). Moonbase Alpha safeguarded all the nuclear waste shipped from Earth, and carried out research. Then, on September 13, 1999, disaster struck when the nuclear waste exploded in a chain reaction, and the Moon was blasted out of Earth's orbit, into deep space. Thus began the adventures of Space:1999. Space:1999 was a British produced science fiction television series that aired from late 1975 to early 1977, and for us science fiction fans, there was nothing else like it on TV at the time. The workhorse of Moonbase Alpha was the Eagle spacecraft. Eagle spacecraft were cleverly designed, modular utility ships (like the Huey helicopters of the day), and were used for work tasks and in various configurations to transport personnel and cargo around the Moon and the planets the Moonbase Alpha crew came across in their travels.

MPC originally released the Eagle 1 model kit back in the 1970’s, and in late 2013 Round 2 Models re-released the Eagle 1. I would like to thank them for providing this great old, new kit to IPMS/USA for review.

In the Box

Like all of Round 2’s re-pops of the old, great MPC and AMT kits we all grew up with, the Eagle 1 box top has the original, colorful art work plus new photos and information from the TV show printed in the bottom of the box. In addition, there are full color painting and decal placement instructions on the side panels of the bottom half of the box. The black & white instruction sheets are virtually the same as the original, but a few new tidbits have been added indicating where in the sequence to apply some of the new decals. The decals are new and improved over the originals, including a view into the cockpit at the pilots through the front windows. There is a full-color cardboard poster (the size of the box bottom) included of Nick Tate, who played Captain Alan Carter – Chief Eagle Pilot. 100 of these posters were even autographed, but disappointingly, my review copy was not one of them. What’s left are the 42 parts that make up the Eagle, and they look just as they did in the original release in the 1970s… including the same few, very slight alignment issues and sharp edges on the parts (no problems though).

Construction/Finishing

Just like the original, this kit goes together pretty well and pretty quickly. You do need to pay close attention to the part numbers and sequence to make sure you get the cockpit oriented correctly, but that’s easy to do. Also, several of the decals need to be applied before final assembly so you need to figure out your scheme for painting and decal application as you build.

As mentioned above, there were only 42 parts to the kit, but there are 104 decals! The decals are well designed and exactly the right size and shape for where they go; however, they were also the only source of trouble building this kit. These decals were brittle, did not seem to have a lot of sticking power and were not as tolerant to be scooted around as they could be. They also did not respond real well to my decal solvent. I have had similar issues with decals on other MPC and AMT re-releases. It not a huge problem, but you have to be patient and work with them carefully. I did switch to a new bottle of decal set that seemed to work a little better, but it still took longer than expected to do its job.

After painting and decals and final assembly, a nice dark gray wash or a quick swipe with weathering powders would bring out all the fine detail, particularly around the tube structure joints. A coat of semi-gloss or dull-cote over everything would then seal it.

Conclusions

Again, just like the original, this is a simple but great looking kit to build. You can go online and watch the Space:1999 TV series. Gather up your kids, watch a couple episodes, get them interested in the Eagle 1 and then build this kit with them. This would be a great kit to get kids interested in modeling, and I would recommend it for anyone interested in science fiction or just building cool space ship kits.

Thanks again to Round 2 Models for providing this great kit for review and thanks also to IPMS/USA for giving me the chance to review it.