Tales from Area 51*

The SPAR Cerma

aka The Watermelon Seed, in 1/72 

Gallery Article by Alvis 3.1

Silly Week 2006

 

For many years, there have been public sightings of an oval shaped aircraft flying at high speed, yet there have never been any radar records of its passage. With a series of accidental non-deletions of certain key documents at Area 51* by unnamed personnel (Craig Walker, former Branch Head of Shredding and Re-Shredding), the truth behind this odd aircraft have finally come to light.
Composed entirely of ceramic composites, the SPAR Cerma was a spin-off of the Space Shuttle tile heat shield technology. Rather than a series of tiles, the Cerma is composed of one single hollow ceramic composite, capable of absorbing massive amounts of heat and pressure. Similar vehicles were also constructed for the US Navy for
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Boosted to a high altitude by Nike Olympus boosters, the Cerma would then proceed to it's intended area by a series of skipping movements across the upper atmosphere. At high speed, gyroscopes control the aircrafts' attitude, and at lower speeds and altitudes, the Cerma uses control jets that are retracted into the rear Control Bay when not in use. The cockpit was completely sealed off from any ability to see out, all flying and navigation being handled by onboard computer systems. The pilot was basically a redundancy system onboard in case of electronic failures.
Designed as a stealthy reconnaissance aircraft, the Cerma fell into disuse at the end of the Cold War. Recent events in the Middle East have not required its' use. 
These are the only known photographs of the Cerma to exist. It is not known if the aircraft ever sported any sort of national insignia, but considering its' budget was hidden in Farm Subsidies, it's highly unlikely it was ever officially operated by US Government agencies. 
The name, Watermelon Seed, was derived from an eyewitness account in the late 1980s (whose grainy picture is also shown below), who described the vehicle "like some sort of giant watermelon seed, spat across the sky!" 

*Area 51 is a Top Secret US Air Force facility that handles all the Secret, Top Secret, Ultra Top Secret and Real Super Ultra Uber Top Secret paperwork. It does not in any way actually test or contain aircraft of terrestrial or extra terrestrial origin. That stuff is at Area 42.

Click on images below to see larger images

The Kit
It's the stand from the cursed 1/144 scale Kepuyuan Boeing 747-400, with a bottom and a canopy made from sheet plastic.  I was enthralled by its' shiny black plasticyness, and HAD to do something with it! Landing gear came from a Airfix F-84G. The happy lil erk is the 1/72 scale pilot figure from the Hasegawa X-29, I believe he's supposed to be Chuck Sewell, the test pilot from that plane. He was handy is why he got used!

Alvis 3.1

Photos and text © by Alvis 3.1