Updated: May 21, 2021

When I was 11 yrs old I had one of the original Aurora Spindrift kits. It was my absolute favorite thing in the whole world. I brought it everywhere with me. One day my brothers and I were taking turns mowing the lawn at my grandparent's farm, and after my turn I was playing with my model in the grass cuttings by the front of the house, hidding it in a pile of grass cuttings, just so. Doorway can't have grass in front of it, need to see out the front window, can't have too much orange showing or a giant will spot it right away, etc. Dinner time! I went in, leaving my precious model hidden in a pile of grass cuttings. Uhh... perhaps Too well hidden. An hour later when I came out... !!! there were bits orange plastic mixed in with the mound of grass! Smashed! What! Must have been the neighbour kids running round on the lawn! Call the police! Adults urged calmness, promised to replace the model ($2.49 + Tax at that time I recall). I never did replace the model (am sure I went for the Seaview's minisub instead), and a few years later my brother Kim admitted he ran over it with the lawn mower just after I'd left and as he was going in too to dinner.

Then he panicked because he knew how much the model meant to me, so he gathered up all the bits (imagine lawn mower sound with sudden clatter and picture flying orange bits rocketing to the side - alarm and then Horror!) and he put them back into a grass pile in a panic attempted cover-up. Flash forward about 20 years: I've really never built a model since, but somehow in casual conversation a friend of mine, John Cameron (modeler, though I didn't know it at the time), it came up that Lunar Models was releasing the Spindrift. Money is no object! I ordered a kit, and an interior kit. In the months leading up to starting (while I built 1/48 scale aircraft, especially enjoying the free-for-all of scratch-building parts from #26 wire, stretched sprue, sheet styrene, watch parts, etc.) I had lots of time to think about what to do with the Lunar Models kit. So, this is what I've built so far.

Spare time when not modeling (which sad to say is full-time): Electrical Engineer, counter-antiship missile research specializing in terminal phase active onboard countermeasures against radar homing missiles, for the past 21 years (ouch). But doing stuff like this is way better than any paying job. It really is!

Best personal regards,

Shawn