In The Beginning

I started this hobby with the kit above back in 1983. Being an early 1980s kit and 1/144, the details weren't that awesome with raised panel lines and no cockpit (not even cavity, just blobs of plastic pretending to be the crew's heads). What was truly horrendous was that I glued the parts together using rubber adhesive (the one used by cobblers), the cuts were not cleaned up and my total lack of understanding on the decalling instructions. Instead of the usual dip in water-decal came loose-slide it off the backing paper-apply pressure and dry method, I simply cut the markings, backing paper and all, slather ordinary glue and stick em on their places on the model! Oh, the model was not painted at all. I can't remember whether the kit include landing gears but even if it did, it was not used as it the kit was intended to be more of a toy than a display piece!