It's funny because I was just on a "retro future" blog and saw a rocketship with a similar configuration to this. It works great.
The ‘50’s era rocketships with engines on three or four “wings” coming out from the hull is a classic configuration. It was essentially a V2 design with engines added to the fins. Consider that my Valiant design took the idea of a rocketship and massaged into something else. The Endurance is meant to be an evolutionary step beyond that, but it is really still playing with the rocketship idea massaged into something else. So here we have the merging of real world and fictional rocketship concepts massaged into something representing earlier predecessors to the Enterprise of TOS. If Jefferies had actually worked on any of this kind of stuff I’m pretty sure he would have thinking in more general terms rather than trying to lay out and rationalize a detailed evolution of design, something we as fans have the time to obsess over while Jefferies had deadlines to meet.
Thats but one variation. If you want to see a truly far out variation of the rocket with engines on the fins or wings check out the Cosmostrator from 1959’s First Spaceship on Venus. https://www.flickr.com/photos/modern_fred/14127569020/in/photostream/
I was more interested in the similarity to your project not any specific variations. I was just struck by stumbling upon something so similar in configuration in a short period of time is all.
Not wanting to get too far ahead of myself, but this design could also serve to represent the century old starships Archon (referenced in “Return Of The Archons”) and Horizon (referenced in “A Piece Of The Action”). Of course, something totally different could be rationalized for those ships.
I've decided to move on to the next item. I feel I've spent too much time on this, and there is a limit to how much time would more realistically have been spent on this. That said I can revisit this subject down the road. Imagine fans spending decades trying to more clearly make out those images and trying to track down complete original images
Perfect! Oh please do those iterations first. I wonder if that influenced Matt....or the other way around....what year was that? Those are Trek nacelles all right.
It needs to be said that where and the way those support pylons attack to the main hull is frickin’ weird given the shape of the hull.
I'm intrigued. It looks like the Bird of Prey from "Balance Of Terror", but we saw that on screen. What am I missing?
I’m building it out of interest. While there are drawings of the ship to be found the original model disappeared (or was destroyed) way, way, back in the day while TOS was in production. Any footage of it seen later in the series was stock footage from “Balance Of Terror.” So it’s highly unlikely anyone has had access to either original construction drawings or drawings made from the original model. So to some extent later drawings and schematics are interpretations of what photographs exist of the original model. Unless someone can tell me otherwise. I know some drawings online add detail to the design that wasn’t visible in available photos like hangar doors, impulse engine ports and landing gear. The design does have something of a lifting body shape so possibly someone figured it could go atmospheric and actually land. But those details are pure conjecture. The TOS Romulan and Klingon ships, while both great designs and with more detail than most original TOS miniatures, are still not as detailed as the Enterprise 11ft. and 33in. miniatures. Of course they were never meant to be scrutinized for fifty odd years by obsessed fans. So my model is my interpretation of drawings and photos to explore its design. I can then light the model as well as create images and view angles not seen in existing photos. As I noted a couple of posts above figuring out how the support pylons are actually shaped and how they attach to the hull has been quite the thought exercise. I have also figured out that how those have been drawn, particularly in the bow and aft elevations, is incorrect and was done maybe in a bit of haste. I’m in the process of fashioning the pylons now and seen from directly fore or aft they don’t look the way they’ve been drawn and they could never look that way given their shape. It would interesting to know if Wah Chang made any drawings of the BoP before building it or if he just built it from scratch without drawings, which is not impossible. It’s interesting to note that many, if not most, of the windows look to be raised details rather than flush with the hull surface. Thats rather unusual and actually looks rather odd. Chang might have gone that route to avoid cutting holes in the model for windows or to avoid painting them on, so he just glued something to represent windows onto the model. Weird.
I see. Was just wondering about it. And looking at either fan blueprints, the original AMT kit, the three ship AMT lit for TOS (small versions of the Enterprise, D-7, and the Romulan Bird of Prey), and various companies gaming miniatures, there are MANY interpretations of this classic design. I'll be interested to see what size you think the ship was meant to be relative to the Enterprise, as they were never seen onscreen together. That's another thing about various gaming miniatures, their differing sizes.
Given its apparent limited power and range I suspect the ship wouldn’t be that large. But we’ll see. The original AMT built miniature of the TOS Klingon ship still exists, and I believe it’s in a museum somewhere. So drawings made before construction or directly from the finished miniature could exist. Also I believe the original AMT released model kit was actually quite faithful and accurate to the studio version with only minor variation. However, I don’t believe the studio miniature was ever rigged with lights or ever meant to be.