There are no more SR-71s flying, but one can still enjoy building a model of it, even if it is forty years old. This is the Revell 1/72 scale Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. This kit was originally produced in 1967, just one year after Revell released the 1/72 scale YF-12 interceptor. Most SR-71 kit boxes have the year 1969 printed on them, however Revell continued to produce the kit with the same box art well into the 70s.
Straight from the box, the Revell SR-71 is pretty rough looking. It's as if the engineers at Revell were in a hurry to get this kit on dime store shelves. The fuselage and wings are basically two large flat pieces that fit together, rather poorly. A large gap runs around the bottom fuselage edge. The engine cowlings fit poorly as well. The verticle fins don't fit too well either. It's sparse on detail, although there isn't much detail to see on the real plane either unless you get real close to it.
Revell made the obvious choice to mould the kit in black styrene; that way inexperienced modelers could built it without painting. I didn't paint my original one back in '76, so I left this rebuild in the original black as well. This time however I ran a Dremel tool with a polishing wheel over it to rub out scrathches and marks. The orginal decals went on well using the Microscale system. Micro Sol was necessary for the wing markings to conform to the ribbing on the wing panel.
This is a pretty simple model - not much to it. Interestingly, the YF-12 kit is of much higher quality.
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