Goony X-15, Part 1, Parts In the past I bought a few of the Quest X-15 Parts packs. In the pack you get everything except the engine mount, main body tube and parachute. I figured with some BT-60 based parts I could make a good goony version. I raided the spare parts drawers. I found an Alpha style nose cone and a length ...
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Goony X-15, Part 2, Fin Prep One way to make a simple Goony is to glue the original kit fins onto a short 7 1/2" length of BT-60. The edges of the fins were sanded square. You can see the laser cut "chattering" that needed to be sanded flat. The Strakes go down the body tube above the wings. These are simply shortened by ...
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Goony X-15, Part 3, Small Stuff The pointed tip of the nose cone was rounded off with some 220 grit wrapped over my fingers. Medium CA glue was wiped onto the inside body tube ends with a Q-tip. TIP: You can get a very even line of glue by using your fingertip against the tube lip as a depth gauge for the ...
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Goony X-15, Part 4, Strake and Fin Root Edge Fitting
The wings and upper and lower rudders glue on in a cruciform, 90 degree spacing. The wings are set back farther than the real X-15 for stability. The strakes glue over the top of the wings. Notice the gap at the root edge of the strake.
For the best fit, sand an angle ...
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Goony X-15, Part 5, Canopy Fitting Originally I thought this Goony X-15 might be a fun addition to the Odd'l Rockets line. It all hinged around the price of the X-15 decal from Quest. They wanted too much for the individual decal sheets and that in turn made the price of the kit too high. I had carved a X-15 style canopy to ...
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Goony X-15, Part 7, White Undercoats And Sanding
Grey primer really shows off all the rough areas a glue blobs. The follow up white undercoat shows off even more. Check out the rough fillet area under the strake.
Trying to apply a glue fillet in the very tight back fin angle is very hard to do. Sometimes I don't bother with it. The ...
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Goony X-15, Part 6, Gluing It Together
Here's a view from the back showing the fin position. You can see the angled root edges to fit against the body tube. Now it's starting to look like an X-15 - well, sort of. White coats are next.
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Goony X-15, Part 8, Black Paint Switch So . . . you paint it black! No masking, just black. I know, it should be flat black. But, there are water slide decals. You can't get great results placing decals on flat paint. "Silvering" occurs where the decals can't fully adhere to a rougher flat finish. I wasn't that excited about ...
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Goony X-15, Part 9, Nose Weight
This one might be okay without any added nose weight but I'll play it safe and add a 1/2 oz. of clay. I had already set the screw eye in the nose cone base. I unscrewed it along with some balsa from the shoulder. I've never drilled out a nose cone for weight before! In the picture you can see ...
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Goony X-15, Part 10 Decals and Finished Before applying any decals the model was polished. The metallic finish is a bit rougher than a gloss would be. I wanted to be sure there wouldn't be any silvering of the decals.
This one actually came out pretty well! Except for the length of the side strakes, all the fins ...
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Goony X-15, Part 11 Comparisons
Here's a comparison between the Quest X--15 and my Goony version. I didn't use as many decals on the nose cone. To be honest, the Quest decal sheet had all those little decals in different areas on the decal sheet. A real pain to place all those tiny details. On a Goony it's not really needed. ...
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