I don't think it would make the Metaluna larger. Just need to fudge a little on things. Your current dimensions of "60m x 52m x 12.5m" sound correct. So the command dome should be about 38 feet wide at it's base connection to deck-2, front view. The Jupiter-2 was 45 feet in diameter, with a 15-foot wide forward view-port. So try a 'reduced' to 12 feet wide and 3 feet high, 3-pane view-port in the front of the command dome. And your command dome should currently be about 10 foot high from it's base. So a 6-foot high x 3-foot wide sliding air-lock hatch should easily fit on the starboard side of the dome - in line with the domes heighest point. The objective here is only to include a bit of the Jupiter-2 feeling in the Bellerophon. Not an exact replicate of the J-2. So a little fudging is ok.
Does anyone else think this ship design would make a good United Planets battleship / troop carrier. Especially if it were sized to like 5x to 8x the C-57-D; the 3 outer blue light componets on the bottom were replaced with 3 rotating red C-57-D engine domes; the transparent command dome on top changed to an opaque metal; and the white color replaced with metal grey? I kinda like the way it blends 3 bloated double convex saucers into a triangle configuration. I can see it working for the UP's 'big gun' chores.
Hey Larryman, I don't wanna be a pest, but could you invite me to join your group one more time? I didn't get anything in either of my e-mail accounts. I'd love to see this stuff. albertese@yahoo.com or albertese@gmail.com Thanks! --Alex
Ah, success! Thanks larryman. You've got a pretty impressive collection of pics there. I can't wait to get some spare time to read what's up there. --Alex
Could I also get an invitation to that group? FP is one of my favorite movies... towerpower3000@hotmail.com
^ Ok, TowerPower. I sent you an invitation e-mail. Don't forget to cast your vote in the group's 'Polls' section - on adopting the Silent Invaders ufo as the United Planets battleship style.
OK, so thanks to some of you here, I found some great reference material for my project. I figure I'll share the first fruits of my labor: This is the main deck of C-57D. It is based at this point solely on the working drawings of the set pieces. I've shaded out the areas that were never seen in the movie (and were never built as sets for that matter). These are the areas I'll have to fill in on my own. The only area I've taken liberties on is the outer wall of the crew barracks area, where I've continued the one wild wall of locker doors around the perimeter. 16 lockers for 16 crew bunks sounds about right. I am aware of Shane Johnson's drawings from the early '80's but I don't like his conjecture on this ship's arrangement. He seems to have too much of the ship devoted to private restrooms for the officers. And I don't care for his take on the galley and mess facilities which he seems to place on the upper deck. But looking at the working drawings makes it seem like the intent was for the long curved table in the 12:00 direction to be the crew's dining table. It seems to me that the galley and the officer's mess are probably behind the bookcase. Shane Johnson placed the crew's bathroom in that long wedge in the 8:00 direction. At first I thought that seemed weird, but then I saw a guy's model on CultTVman who was super-detailing his Polar Lights C-57D to the Shane Johnson drawings and he included a couple figures...erm...using the facilities. Seeing the space modeled with human figures makes me think it'd be cramped but it would work. I've been in restrooms in bars that where smaller yet. Oh well, I'll keep updating as I work on this project. Any discussion on the layout of the ship would be great! --Alex
About 3/4 way down the page here: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3f.html there's some c57d information and images. A miniature here too: http://spaceart.de/produkte/fbp001.php I have a couple 3D model images that someone made of the interior. Doesn't really show a whole lot, but gives an idea of how it would fit. I can't find where I got them from, but PM me an email address and I can send them to you.
Again, that's him sort of defaulting to Star Trek thinking - in filling up the shell of Matt Jefferies' model Franz Joseph allowed for lots of privacy.
Seems to me to be a waste of effort to change the Shane Johnson blueprints of the C-57-D. They are by now as classic in their way, as the movie. Unless the intent was to propose an upgrade version to the C-57-D... like for a C-57-E, or a C-57-F model versions. I mean... by now (27 years later)... the Shane Johnson blueprints are THE default 'official' blueprints of the C-57-D. Even if they do have too many toilets - .
Johnson's blueprints aren't that widely known - there just aren't that many folks so into Forbidden Planet that much of a tech fandom exists. It took me years to track down a hard copy at conventions. The fact that there are an extremely well-known set of Enterprise blueprints - Franz Joseph's - hasn't prevented a couple of generations of Trek tech fans from trying to improve on them, particularly given that FJ took some idiosyncratic liberties with the ship (partly due to limited reference material). I for one would be really interested in any new C57-D blueprinting effort - the original set blueprints are out there to use as a basis. ProjectRHO is an amazingly cool site.
^ Well, I'm certainly not anti-change. My C-57-G "Enterprise" and Metaluna-"Bellerophon" show that. But I think the objective of the change should make sense. I just don't think anyone would accept a non- Shane Johnson version of the C-57-D now.
Except...who's "anyone?" It's possible that many of the relatively few people who've seen the Johnson blueprints are pretty attached to them, but there are already clearly a number of folks who are interested in alternatives. There's too much tendency on the part of Trek fans to want FP to fit well with Trek somehow or to be a "part of it" - a prequel or something. FP is the equal of Star Trek and precedes it; my preference would be to see some extrapolations from it that completely ignore the way things are done in Trek, perhaps using other 1950s science fiction prose and design as an inspiration instead. The Metaluna craft is one good example of that, and there are many others extant at projectrho. You know, the Jupiter II wouldn't be a bad ship to try to work in as part of the United Planets fleet - it's so closely borrowed from FP in so many respects, both interior and exterior, that it should be a pretty neat fit.
I don't understand why it was difficult to find Shane Johnson's C-57D blueprints. They are still available for purchase: http://stores.ebay.com/Starbase-Atlanta-Inc__W0QQ_sidZ2473121?_nkw=c-57D&submit=Search
My objective is to come up with a logical internal arrangement of the C-57D mainly for my own edification. If other enjoy my work: great! If not, that's fine too. After all, Shane Johnson's work is out there and accepted by many. I intend to offer an alternate, really for my own entertainment. I'm not taking any stab at establishing canon. I hardly have any authority to do that. Given the smallness of it, I think that an old diesel submarine would offer a more compelling and realistic design analog than a starship. So my take on it will be more along those lines. Granted, all the bunk beds suggest that the crew is not subjected to the indignities of hot-bunking, but I really think the officers should either share with the crew's toilets, or they should have one separate toilet for their own use. I lean towards the latter. Also, I want to move the galley and mess facilities from the upper deck to the main deck and do something more practical up there, but I'm not sure what yet. --Alex
Sometimes they are, and sometimes they aren't, and I have a general aversion to buying things online from folks who I don't know anything about (or, in the case of outfits like Starbase Atlanta or New Eye Studio, I'm sorry to say, that I've had poor experiences with). Fan blueprints in particular are often misrepresented - some years ago people started reproducing McMasters' drawings and the FJ Enterprise prints at half-size to save money and packaging and selling them without indicating that. As it was, I passed on one set of C57-D blueprints at a convention because they' were already distressed. I did take a chance and come up with a decent trade of the Innovation Forbidden Planet graphic novel by Daerick Gross on eBay a couple of years ago - though even there, it was supposed to be packaged with all four of the individual issues and only came with two. And I suppose that if the novelization ever turns up online I may go for that, since many years of haunting used book stores have failed to turn it up. Exactly - that makes a lot more sense to me as well.
The Jupiter-2 was my first desire for the Bellerophon. But I had to give it up because of it's interior inadequacy. Exterior-wise, the Jupiter-2 makes a good 'single-deck' saucer ship - all flight deck, and no lower living deck. But to carry the known crew of the Bellerophon (16 members), and any useful planet exploration equipment... the Jupiter-2 is just out of the question. It could not even 'believably' accommodate the Robinson mission. It's lower deck was as large as it's upper deck - and still not large enough... yet had to fit in the smaller space of the lower ship. But it could still be used elsewhere in the United Planets, as it was initially intended by Irwin Allen... as a long-range sleeper-ship transport (only) vehicle - the "Gemini-12" style. Like an inter-stellar shuttlecraft.