Better pictures are on the way ...

The Kaitos EBK-IV X553 Exploration Spaceboat and Observation Satellite (whew - what a mouthful!) is the fourth kit in the 'Colony' series from the Czech Republic's Andromeda. Whether 'Colony' is the latest European sci-fi fad or something Andromeda dreamed up, I don't know. I got the kit out of curiosity - it was listed for $4.99 in the Squadron Shop mailer. At that price, how could I lose?

Czech manufacturers have a reputation for clean, sharply detailed models - and have since the Communist days when the bulk of their products were vacuforms. Andromeda certainly lives up to that standard, at least as far as this kit. It comes with a 95 clean, virtually flash free parts on two sprues. There's also a piece of cloth mesh. The instruction sheet is adequate, and provides 'historical' info and assembly instructions in English and three other languages. A set of generic decals (probably the same set you get with any of the 'Colony' line - all the names are on it) rounds out the package. The boxtop says the model is 1/144 scale, but the instructions say it's 1/300.

I started building the top hull according to the instructions. There are no alignment pins and only the faintest of locating marks on the plastic, so figuring out exact placement of parts is problematic. The parts do fit very nicely, however. Everything goes together easily with just a little sanding and test fitting needed. I didn't even use putty - for once, it just wasn't necessary! Why can't AMT/ERTL make something like that? The plastic reacted well to standard Testor's liquid cement. The only real problem I encountered arose from the delicateness of some of the smaller details. The parts attach to the sprues via thick stubs which are hard to clean up without damage.

The more I looked at the kit, the less satisfied I became with the design - so I decided to kitbash my own exploration spaceboat. This gave me the chance to raid my spares box for parts I've had for over 15 years! I turned the bridge around, mounted the engine exhausts to the bow as rocket launchers, and added gun mounts (made from two halves of an airplane wheel and guns from the old Revell USS Arizona kit - an excellent source of greeblies!). The 'secondary hull' was completely overhauled. The exhaust nozzle was made from the top of a superglue bottle and mounted on more aircraft wheels and bomb parts. The probe is an in-flight refueling probe form an AV-8B kit mounted to a piece of strip styrene. The satellite retrieval rig at the front came from a PBY-5 kit. The sensor dish is from a destroyed ERTL Enterprise, and was attached to a piece of rod running through a craft bead. The rest of the details are all kit parts in new locations. The two hulls were joined with the landing gear from the MPC TI/Interceptor (finally, a use for that thing!).

The satellite was built mostly according to the instructions. The antenna at the side is a piece of rod with a 1/700 photetched brass railing attached. All the thruster nozzles were drilled out with a moto-tool.

Painting was easy. I have no idea why a reconnaissance ship would be painted red, as the boxtop shows. Seems to me a more 'stealthy' look would be desired, so I painted the ship overall flat black. The pictures don't show this well, but I then went over the entire surface with dark blue and dark Grey-green stripes as 'camouflage'. The effect is quite nice up close. The hull and satellite ID numbers came from a 1/700 ship kit (F82 is a frigate in the Spanish Navy); the yellow strips are formation lights from an F-14 kit. I applied these after laying down a coat for Future acrylic floor wax (the flat black surface was too rough to apply decals on without it).

Even with this coat, however, the first decals silvered badly. I stripped them off by pressing a piece of tape over the decal and lifting up. I added a couple drops of white glue to the water for the next decals, which took care of the silvering. The final touch was adding the windows. These were made from a strip of clear decal film overcoated with gloss white paint, then a light coat of Tamiya Clear Red. (White light can be seen forever in the dark, and ruins a person's night vision. Dim red light can't be seen as far and doesn't affect night vision - which is why work spaces and passageways aboard US Navy warships are lit with dim red lights at night. It doesn't look as bright as this ... but what the heck).

Overall, this kit was fun to build - and even more fun to kitbash. I highly recommend it, whether you're a 'Colony' fan (is there such a thing?) or not - if nothing else, there are a wealth of good greeblies in the box! Squadron seems to always have it on sale - otherwise, I have no idea here you would go to find one.