Flying Fortress
SCRATCHBUILT
This project was a shooting miniature for a University of Miami student's semester project. He had a basic design idea that involved elements from Star Wars' Y-Wing and snowspeeder as well as a rough sketch design.
The film short was to be the story of a Batman-esque adventurer in the 1940's who patrolled the skies of his city in a futuristic flying machine called the Flying Fortress (no relation to the WW II craft of that name).
Owing to the fact that this ship had to exist in a specific era, the 1940's, I studied design elements from planes of the era, as well as modern elements that would not be too far afield of 40's technology. The client had a preference for a jet rather than prop or turbo-prop engine.
One design that kept coming back to me was the tri-maran design of the P-38 Lightning fighter plane. Although the Fortress is not Tri-maran in design, the rear slung cockpit module hanging between the two huge nacelles looked very nice. I dispensed with a horizontal rudder between the nacelles as it would ruin the sleekness. Also discarded were out-thrust weapons fins at the front. I used bow-mounted inset weapons instead. I added VTOL thruster grates at the bottom in addition to landing gear doors.
The basic design was specified to be 18" long by the client. I used his sketch as a starting point and roughed out design sketches to this size. I incorporated the flattened bottom from the Snowspeeder and twin engines from the Y-wing then adjusted other design elements to taste.
Client specifications called for maximum sleekness, minimum outcroppings, and virtually no markings. The client also specified that the cockpit would not require an interior and should be painted flat black for easier photography.
Material: scratchbuilt from fiberglass, bondo, styrene, vivak, etc.
Approach: Completely Custom!
Client: Private client
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