Knight26

Makes me wonder if any of the great and talented customizers out there have tried their hands at making a 1:48 VF-1D yet, and a real VF-1D, not just a repaint with a cramped cockpit. While I don't have the skills for such a task I know I would be willing to sacrifice one of my 1:48's to the cause, provided I got it back, and of course I would pay for it. Any takers?

Man that made giggle so hard at work that people looked at me funny.

Here is the new version, added better wings, two more turrets and a second launch bay as well a few more details. The texture is temporary and will be replaced BTW, just a placeholder for now. This is a later model variant with the advance Particle Duct Engines, a primitive gravity drive used by the younger races. Earlier variant did not have the large intakes in the wings. Well let me know what you think, personnally I think the new one is a great improvement. Maybe some day I'll actually get around to making the civilian variant.

I've put the Stingray aside for a couple days, anyway I've been on a redesign kick lately and have redesigned another of my early designs. Come to think of it, I've redone a lot of my old ships, only a few have remained unchanged, but that was because I didn't comprimise on their designs much if at all, just improved on them. Anyway this one is not part of the vote but thought you guys might like to comment on it. This is the Liberator Class Transatmopsheric High Speed Courier/Corvette. The old design never sat quite right with me, actually derived it from an old toy I had laying around. It was originally minimally armed but extremely fast with decent shields so the military adapted it to their purposes. They added more armament, not enough make it a serious threat but enough to give it some punch against potential hostiles as well as ramping up the shields. They are very plentiful and are actually found in use by both sides because special ops teams used them to go deep into enemy territory and quite a few were captured. Anyway onto the pics, here is the original first, not the best in the world I know.

Actually BoB that was an early design idea for the original but I scrapped it when I stuck the beam cannon in the tail. A regular beam cannon is actually fired out of those domes on the hull of the ship, the black ones with the green spots, Placeholder texture for now. But the big one that rides in the tail actually fires out of that red box, it opens to reveal the weapon. Once that whole thing was worked out I realized that a beam cannon that large would create too much of recoil when fired to allow it to be on a flexible mount. Therefore I opted for the solid tail design, and worked the design history and order of battle to match. Thanks for the comment though, and I am considering something like that for a corvette scaled craft, having a smaller beam cannon riding the tip of its tail, but that one is still in the early concept phase.

Second picture, lightings a little better here.

I think I know what WDC is talking about with the renders so I made two scenes with the Stingray and it's older cousin the Cenobite Destroyer, another Lodran ship. Yes I know the Destroyer is larger then the cruiser, but that is one of the ways I designate ships. Infact Destroyers are designated by weapons type, in this case large scale anti-capital ship weapons. Those big keel mounted cannons in the forward hull are asteroid cannons, hurl a big enough rock fast enough and it will destroy a capital ship in one hit, plus it is a great siege weapon. Well first picture.

Personnaly I think the whole JSF concept is flawed, and think both designs are crap, not a fan of stealth at all. The main issues I have are with the emphasis on stealth, sorry but passive stealth is crap, too many comprimises for not enough pay off, you loose way too much performance. I don't agree with having all the services fly essentially the same plane, sorry it doesn't work, only planes that have ever made the transition successfully were the F-86 (FJ-1 Fury, Naval Variant), the F-4, and the A-7. Everytime we tried to make a plane for everyone it failed and was only suitable for one service. ANother problem I have with the concept, the only Thrust Vectoring any of the variants have is on the B model, and that is only for VTOL. Also there are no internal guns on the B and C models, hello didn't we learn this lesson before? And then there is the fact that the B model, the VTOL version, has no internal weapons bay thereby defeating the whole stealth design. Well that is just my rant. Infact there was only one JSF design concept I thought looked like it was worth anything, it was MDC concept if I remember correctly, very similar to the final X-35 concept except that it had a canard concept, no horizontal stabilizer. I'll see if I can find pics.

I'd ask you to explain, but no never mind. *Wonder's who said to just give it up*

Ok, did a little more work on it, replaced the turrets, though I may still replace them again, changed the texture redid the forward retro thrusters and added a bank of manuevering thrusters to the wings. I think it makes it look a lot better, opinions?

The design is still evolving, the turrets will be replaced and details added to the hull. As for the color scheme that is just a temporary texture I applied, maybe I should have shown untextured shots for now. Details like manuevering thrusters still need to be added. I haven't put much time into it yet because I am still trying to decide if it is worth the effort. Maybe that is where the confusion lies, this ship is far from finished. And WDC what do you mean it doesn't appear large enough? Just how big do you think this ship is? Maybe I should have stated the size to begin with, it is a little over 1000 ft long. This is actually small compared to most sci-fi spacecraft, except some of the trek designs. Unlike other sci-fi spacecraft I try to take into account real physics and what would be required to speed up, slow down, and manuever a ship. Believe it or not I've done a lot of real world design work including concept designs for real spacecraft, a background in aerospace engineering helps.

I can say a lot of things about the F-22 that would really piss you off, but I will refrain for now. I will just say this about that POS, that the cost of maintaining is signifcantly higher than the YF-23 would have had. One example, in order to pull the engines for maintenance purposes you have to cut a hole in the very expensive RAM skin. The hole is then welded shut after the engine is reinstalled and a brand new piece of RAM outer skin applied because it is not reusable. The designers did not account for maintenance very effectively or they would have put access hatches at those points. A friend of mine was in engine school and they had a test stand for techs to practice on. She said it had so many patches in the wrong place that it would threatened the aerodynamics of the plane in flight. I won't even mention the cost of building all the maintenance pit that will be required in order to load the thing's missiles and work on the underside at all.

Here is the description, first draft so it may change a little, please excuse any typos or bad grammar. Removed Description.

The New Design, that image in the background is the Eagle Ray that I figured the hull layout from, unfortunately when I rendered it the picture was stretched, my bad. But, when I first drew it, it was proportioned properly. Anyway here is the new version:

First Picture, the Original Design:

I never really had a problem with this design until I did a description of it in the book I am currently working on. After I wrote the description I looked back at the design and it did not really fit it anymore, so I decided to redesign it. I kind of like the new design, but a buddy at work said it looked like a Star Trek Cardasian (sp?) ship. I looked at one and noticed the resemblance but dismissed it as they took the same inspiration for the hull layout I did, a Ray, this time it was the Southern Eagle Ray, the old one, just a generic Stingray. So what do you guys think? I appreciate any and all comments.

Nah, nothing like spacebattles.com no universe crossovers.

Nice, is it going to get a cockpit as well, or too little ref data for that?

That forward fan acts to pump air down to the main engine in gerwalk mode, in fighter mode it would like just rotate the vanes straight to act as intake guides. In fighter mode it would actually be somewhat of a deteriment at high speeds, it would be most useful in gerwalk.

actually, knowing you, u'd break in to modernize it, then u could break in again to stick in the 1/72 VF-0! Only if I could have WM Cheng build all the modernization modelling component and VF models. Anything I built would look like crap on such a beautiful model.

I would hate to see modern ships named after science fiction ships. Let's face it, unless you are a complete looser Star Trek geek you realize that the Enterprise name has been around for centuries and that the ship in the shows was named after that not the other way around. Though they did whine enough to convince the Senate and NASA to rename the Constitution the Enterprise, though it never flew in space sadly. Anyway back to the model, sorry but I do not remember who built it, someone mentioned that Starship modeler had an article about it, maybe that says. As for sneaking a 1:72 model VF-0 or VF-1, I would have been more likely to stick a little 1:72 scale RAM launcher on its sponsons had I been given the oppurtunity, lol, jk.

Well we all know that I am a big Flanker and Fuclrum fan, but as for underrated fighters out there, hmmm.... I would have to say the A-4K Skyhawk, and the F-8 Crusader. Ordinarily I would put the A-10 for underrated attacker, but that is just inside the air force top brass, everyone else admits that is the best attack jet and tank killer in the world.

The only thing I am really disappointed about is that there won't be any 1:48 scale two seat VF-1s made. I was hoping for a good VF-1D, actually I was hoping that the low viz would have been a VF-1D instead of a VF-1A. Hey I loved the low Viz, but it would have lent itself perfectly to a VF-1D. Is the reason they are not making any 1:48 two seaters because of all the problems is with the 1:60s? If so, I'm sure they can figure something out, heck make it a limited edition special paint job. I know you must all think I'm crazy, I'd love to the Macross Plus VF's in 1:48 as well, but would the lack of at least 1:48 VF-1D seems very odd to me, as most of the toy is already built and only a relatively small redesign would be required. Guess I wil have to wait for a custom conversion kit. BTW sorry about the relatively long post, been on a writing streak lately and can't help it.

That is bad assed, remember seeing bits of that cobbled together a year or so ago, looks alot like the animation from the VO opening.

Unfortunately Agent One it was a crappy old digital camera, like first generation of digital cameras and I didn't know how to turn it off. If I ever go back there I will take a much better digi-cam with me and take far more and better pictures. That beast is truly awesome and very impressive to view. And to answer Opus' question the info sheet on it said it took about five years to build including all the model planes and several people worked on it. Even the plane models were very high quality, maybe not WM Chengs, but easily better the something the average modeler does.