What Santa Won't Fly 2009 - 1/72 Polar Predator

Gallery Article by Alvis 3.1 on Dec 24 2009

Christmas Eve 2009

 

Rising fuel and maintenance costs led Santa to pursue the operation of an Un Santa Vehicle, or a USV for his yearly present deliveries. Using the basic "General Atomics Predator" design, a few minor tweaks were added, such as chimney location software, and this would allow Santa to deliver his presents all from the comfort of an indoor office. 

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The test flights showed great promise, and Santa was planning the use it for the first time in 2009, but a series of inexplicable fuel contamination incidents involving reindeer and the hacking of the direct video feed by disgruntled Elves sympathetic to the soon to be unemployed reindeer led Santa to shelve the "Polar Predator" for the 2009 Christmas Season. Hopefully, once the data is encrypted, he'll resume operations with his first Remotely Piloted Vehicle.

I used the  Accurate Miniatures version of the RQ-1 Predator. Assembly was easy, as was the paint scheme. Red. I'm lazy...it's small...so red it was!
The figures and "Reindeer" came from Preiser and ModelPower, and are in Ho (1/87 scale). I think Santa is wondering if perhaps Mrs Claus should be wearing a slightly longer skirt...

Alvis 3.1

Photos and text © by Alvis 3.1