With Martian habitation and industry slumping in the twenty-second century, the Martian Development Program needed a morale booster and an ad campaign to bolster investment in the colonies and mining camps. They struck on the notion of an X-Plane contest to build and fly the first glider to orbit Mars. As Tom Paris tells us in Voyager's 1999 episode “11:59”, the winner was one of his ancestors.

Converted from a Condor Atmospheric Shuttle, the Paris One was stripped of its reactor, its engines, and its excess weight. Its cargo bay doors were lined with solar panels that would be exposed for periods during the flight in order to recharge batteries powering the aircraft's avionics and flight controls.

The shuttle's bulky, durable landing gear were replaced with a lighter bicycle arrangement and wingtip skids. Finally, a towing mast was connected to the aircraft's prow to enable a mothership to thrust the glider aloft.

I based the model on Revell's Heinkel He 177 A-5, with parts from Italeri's OA-10A and F-14A. Inverting the wings (including the roots) and giving them the angled bend was the first challenge, followed by puttying all the gaps. The longest period of assembly was removing all the surface features to produce an “inflated skin” effect on the wings and polishing off the horribly molded straps on the cockpit blister.

For the paint scheme I made a first frustrating attempt at pre-shading, and after a half-dozen bouts of priming, painting, mourning, and sanding down to bare plastic, I finally like the results. I tried to create a 1930's Captain Proton effect for the entry, and I included a few nods to Martian sci-fi in the decal scheme.

Image: Closeup, top/rear

Image: Closeup, left/front

Image: Bicycle gear

Image: Pilot's hatch