--Originally Posted 1/7/10--

Two of my favorite songs are Elton John's "Madman Across the Water" and The Beatles' "Fool on the Hill" (or maybe it was titled "World Spinning 'Round") no doubt an attempt to psychologically "hedge my bets", in case it turns out I'm just (yet) another Crazy Naked-Ape. ( I'm 51 years old and still working on an answer to that one!)

But seriously, the Revell Nautilus is, IMHO, a classic case of USGovt disinformation to (or through) a model-maker. The penultimate example being Testors' release of a bogus F-117 "Stealth Fighter" mold, whose picture was duly published in the Wall Street Journal (or maybe it was the New York Times - or maybe both) for good measure. The paper(s) generated so much hype about it that my dad even clipped the article and picture for me - which I may yet still have (somewhere under all my piles of old crap).

Before stealthy airframes, probably nothing was a more closely-guarded secret - during the height of the Cold War, mind you - than the design of a state-of-the-art, nuclear attack sub - particularly the very first one, ever! So it doesn't surprise me that the Revell Nautilus hull was inaccurate - and the Lindberg Nautilus and Renwal George Washington hulls also significantly inaccurate, to varying degrees.

The biggest surprise was that Aurora was able to roll out a remarkably accurate Skipjack-class hull - following a moderately accurate Nautilus hull, as well - though, by then the state-of-the-art SSN had progressed to the Thresher/Permit design, no plastic model of which has ever been released - even to this day!

So, you have to cut up a Dragon- or Revell Los Angeles-class mold into your own Thresher conversion, if you want one. Which brings us right back to The Mad Basher, eh?

As always Kevin, thanks for the encouragement, buddy!

Cheers,

-Matty