Captain Link Appleyard’s motto for his sub-orbital air charter business is “Anything, Anywhere, Anytime.” When an ad agency hired Captain Appleyard to fly a group of bikini models from Los Angeles to Sydney for a photo shoot, he had to take the job. The flight should have only taken 2.5 hours, but a problem developed in the ship’s left engine. At 09:17:32 on May 10, 2025, at an altitude of 120,000 feet, a catastrophic failure of one of the reactors caused the ship to spin out of control and freefall for 20,000 feet before the intrepid Captain Appleyard could recover. Only quick thinking, 15 years of flight experience and cat-like reflexes enabled Captain Appleyard to safely land the ship on an isolated South pacific island with no passengers harmed.

After a day on a beautiful island, Captain Appleyard and his lovely passengers were rescued by an Australian naval vessel. The ship was recovered and is undergoing extensive repairs. The cause of the equipment failure is still under investigation. Despite this incident and an unexplained loss of a Centennial Airlines Spindrift en route to London, these ships have maintained and excellent safety record.

When Polar Lights released the classic Spindrift, I started thinking about alternate versions the minute I pulled two of them of the hobby store shelf. This one is number 3 of a six ship fleet of "Appleyard Sub-Orbital Charter Services, LTD".

The model of the Spindrift was built stock. The only trouble spot was the seam between the upper and lower rear hull halves. I filled this in with putty and spent untold hours sanding and re-puttying until I was happy with the join.

I installed the interior floor and cockpit and rear cockpit wall, but kept the passenger cabin parts for another project. The interior was painted light aircraft grey. The exterior was painted tan. I used red vinyl striping and decals from left over sheets for the numbers. The “N351GL” tail code came from a 1/48 scale Learjet. The red dot behind the dome was off a Japanese fighter. The “03” was from an old AMT TOS Enterprise. I added a door control panel from cockpit instruments from a 1/48 fighter decal sheet. The red and blue bands above the door are from an Airfix Buccaneer. The cheesecake decal was an original piece of art drawn by myself, then scanned and printed out on Testors decal paper.

The black stripes were done with a tech pen. The dome was painted a gloss blue from a Krlyon rattle can. I believe the color is Bonnet Blue. I was very happy with the tan, black and red paint scheme and was tempted to quit and display it on a stand.

But this was going to be a crash site version and I had to go in and rough up the beautiful paint. I found the roughest sanding stick and sanded the bottom of the ship so that the primer and even some of the original orange plastic showed through. I also sanded several scratches into the hull on purpose. I dotted several places with Rub-n-Buff silver to simulate chipped paint and a bare metal surface.

Black pastels and colored pencils were applied to the top, sides and bottom of the hull. I filled in the grilles on the front intakes and rear exhaust with a tech pen. After that I applied a black wash to indicate that something may have been on fire. I also did very subtle vertical streaks to the passenger cabin to indicate that the ship had been through incredible stress, but I don’t think you can see this very well in the photos. The front grilles and window frames were painted in gunmetal and drybrushed with sliver.

If you are going to screw up a model, it might as well be a crashed one. I had super glued the front hull halves together after the cockpit windows were in place. I had attached the windows with white glue, but did not use enough. The windows fell out and into the back of the model where they will remain forever. I didn’t feel the need to pry apart the model to recover and replace the front windows.

The dramatic crash photo was created in Corel Photo Paint 10. I used a stock photo of the ocean and spray, removed the rocks and created the splash with the clone tool, and blended four different ocean photos.

I’m happy with the way this project turned out, and I plan on building a Spindrift as it was seen in Land of the Giants, right after I finish my Blue Pete Spindrift, my cutaway Spindrift, and my Chicago Bears team transporter

I know what you’re thinking…where are the bikini models? I’ll have to add them later.

Image: Foward starboard quarter

Image: Stern

Image: Dorsal port

Image: Stern from above