Some Rocket Cars, around 1977. Mine is in the middle. BT-60, over 3 feet long.
Some "X-planes" in 1978, all three scratch-built. I tried to make the big X-wing at left glide. The upper wings deployed up into a "K" type arrangement, but it would not glide. The one in the middle sacrificed accuracy for glide. It had a swing-out scissor type clear plastic canard, and did did glide (Nose ejected off to let the canard deploy). And the X-15 used about a 2.6" tube, and glided pretty nicely for its size and mass. It was a "profile" type model, and I never got around to trying to create decals for it, as that was not very practical in 1978.
I got into making shuttle models. A crude 1/80 orbiter in August 1977. And by 1982, having gotten into R/C, a piggybacked orbiter at 1/72 scale, with wings a bit oversized.
By 1984, a 1/72 full stack shuttle prototype, with scale sized wings. There were a lot of tests, and a lot of setbacks along the way. Heck in 1984 I was not even trying to do a "serious" scale shuttle for contests, I did not have the skills.
So, by 1999, 22 years after the first crude orbiter, with skills and technology I never dreamed of having then....
Backtracking, once I sort of started to get serious about scale in the early 1980's. a Delta 3920 model. BT-70 with Centuri #8 tubes for the solids. This model got me into doing vac-forming, for all those booster noses and nozzles.
