Matt Jefferies original shuttle design

[RedSpar]

Re: Matt Jeffries original shuttle design

Yup, I have Illustrator. Shoot me the file in an email to redspar@redspar.com

Many thanks!

 

[RedSpar]

Re: Matt Jeffries original shuttle design

Thanks Aridas, I got the .AI file.

I still need the fonts that go with the file - FleetOldSchool and FreestyleScrD

Can you email those to me too?

 

[RedSpar]

Re: Matt Jeffries original shuttle design

Nevermind, about those fonts. I found them on the web and the AI file now looks great!

 

[Captain Robert April]

Re: Matt Jeffries original shuttle design

Where'd you find FleetOldSchool? I'm needing to track that one down again.

 

[lennier1]

Re: Matt Jeffries original shuttle design

Where'd you find FleetOldSchool? I'm needing to track that one down again.

About 10 seconds seconds of time, a visit to Google and guess what? http://www.neutralzone.de/archiv/dload/FleetOldSchool.zip

 

[Captain Robert April]

Re: Matt Jeffries original shuttle design

Point taken, and thank you.

 

[ancient]

Re: Matt Jeffries original shuttle design

Beautiful model work.

 

[RedSpar]

Re: Matt Jeffries original shuttle design

Front landing gear done. The landing pads themselves are semi-aero 'buckets' that mount flush with the bottom of the pylons when in flight. They retract down about 3 ft or so when in landing configuration.

Exploded view so you can see inside better:

Rear gear is next and I'll have to ponder it a bit to come up with something workable. I'll make an animation of their articulation when I am done.

 

[Warped9]

Re: Matt Jeffries original shuttle design

Well done!

Although, I do think the main hull looks a bit wide. Cool, nonetheless.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Re: Matt Jeffries original shuttle design

Front landing gear done. The landing pads themselves are semi-aero 'buckets' that mount flush with the bottom of the pylons when in flight. They retract down about 3 ft or so when in landing configuration.

Exploded view so you can see inside better:

Rear gear is next and I'll have to ponder it a bit to come up with something workable. I'll make an animation of their articulation when I am done.

These look nice, but if you want to make them believable, you should alter the internal structure somewhat. Right now, you're reinforcing the bottom surface, but the rest of the thing (and most notably the front, more important than other areas if you assume that the vehicle may be landing with some forward momentum on occasion) will crumple immediately upon impact. I LIKE your concept, but you need to extend the internal "ribbing" to include, at a minimum, the front surface, and ideally all four "walls" of the "bucket." I'm not talking redesign, just adding material to the internal structural element you already have there so that the ribs intersect the walls. You already have a LITTLE bit of this at the side walls, by the way, and I like that... it just needs to be expanded.

Then again, it's ART... and I'm thinking "practical reality." Feel free to ignore my suggestion if you wish. ;-)

 

[USS Triumphant]

Re: Matt Jeffries original shuttle design

Right now, you're reinforcing the bottom surface, but the rest of the thing (and most notably the front, more important than other areas if you assume that the vehicle may be landing with some forward momentum on occasion) will crumple immediately upon impact.

Just out of curiosity: what material are these struts made out of, and what is the strength and flexibility of that material?

Please note that this question is directed at Cary L. Brown, not RedSpar.

 

[RedSpar]

Re: Matt Jeffries original shuttle design

These look nice, but if you want to make them believable, you should alter the internal structure somewhat. Right now, you're reinforcing the bottom surface, but the rest of the thing (and most notably the front, more important than other areas if you assume that the vehicle may be landing with some forward momentum on occasion) will crumple immediately upon impact. I LIKE your concept, but you need to extend the internal "ribbing" to include, at a minimum, the front surface, and ideally all four "walls" of the "bucket." I'm not talking redesign, just adding material to the internal structural element you already have there so that the ribs intersect the walls. You already have a LITTLE bit of this at the side walls, by the way, and I like that... it just needs to be expanded.

Then again, it's ART... and I'm thinking "practical reality." Feel free to ignore my suggestion if you wish. ;-)

I thought it was overbuilt to begin with...lol, but yeah, the ribbing probably should go to the front and the rear of the bucket as well - an easy enough fix that I'll do.

If you look at the thickness of the bucket/pad itself it should be strong enough on it's own (especially in Trek's time)

The ship shouldn't be doing any landing with forward momentum unless it is crashing. I based the gear design off of the Eagle from Space 1999 as it needs to function the same on my ship. Same goes for a real world spaceship the actual Apollo lunar lander - it's meant to land straight down, not with any forward momentum.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Re: Matt Jeffries original shuttle design

Right now, you're reinforcing the bottom surface, but the rest of the thing (and most notably the front, more important than other areas if you assume that the vehicle may be landing with some forward momentum on occasion) will crumple immediately upon impact.

Just out of curiosity: what material are these struts made out of, and what is the strength and flexibility of that material?

Please note that this question is directed at Cary L. Brown, not RedSpar.

Ricotta cheese and used Twizzlers.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Re: Matt Jeffries original shuttle design

Right now, you're reinforcing the bottom surface, but the rest of the thing (and most notably the front, more important than other areas if you assume that the vehicle may be landing with some forward momentum on occasion) will crumple immediately upon impact.

Just out of curiosity: what material are these struts made out of, and what is the strength and flexibility of that material?

Please note that this question is directed at Cary L. Brown, not RedSpar.

Is that intended to be a serious question, or a smart-ass "troll?" I can't quite tell.

So I'll assume it's serious. In which case... the answer is "I have no idea."

But that doesn't matter. Because, regardless of material, basic rules of mechanics always apply. They apply whether the object is made from tin, or from 7000-series aluminum, or from "unobtainium." You always make objects as lightly as possible while as strong as possible. Depending on the loads being borne by this pad, and the material being used, it might need to be much heavier than seen here, or could potentially be much lighter. But in those cases, you'd remove material by reducing wall thicknesses, or add material by increasing wall thicknesses. You would not leave a section of load-bearing wall cantilevered and unsupported, however.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Re: Matt Jeffries original shuttle design

I thought it was overbuilt to begin with...lol, but yeah, the ribbing probably should go to the front and the rear of the bucket as well - an easy enough fix that I'll do.

If you look at the thickness of the bucket/pad itself it should be strong enough on it's own (especially in Trek's time)

No argument there... your internal "reinforcement" (essentially a u-channel extrusion, it seems) would make that bottom surface VERY robust... probably moreso than it needs to be. If this were aircraft-grade aluminum, for instance, I'd say that the "bucket" thickness could be reduced to 75% of what it is here, and the "u-channel" could be reduced to 2/3 of it's current wall thickness... resulting in a significant overall reduction in mass... and the small amount of mass added back in by doing what I suggested would then result in a structure far stronger, overall, than what was there before.

The ship shouldn't be doing any landing with forward momentum unless it is crashing. I based the gear design off of the Eagle from Space 1999 as it needs to function the same on my ship. Same goes for a real world spaceship the actual Apollo lunar lander - it's meant to land straight down, not with any forward momentum.

Actually, the Apollo lunar module was designed to withstand a fairly significant amount of forward momentum at touchdown. Landing that ship wasn't a simple matter of going straight down, after all. If you're interested in checking it out... and finding out just how difficult it really is to enter a "no drift, straight down, landing vector," you can give it a try using this. It's been flown by the guys who flew the real Apollo lander missions and they've remarked at just how accurate it is, by the way.

http://www.eaglelander3d.com/

 

[Ptrope]

Re: Matt Jeffries original shuttle design

Please note that this question is directed at Cary L. Brown, not RedSpar.

Is that intended to be a serious question, or a smart-ass "troll?" I can't quite tell.

Both of you: don't carry your conflicts in other threads over into this, or any other. USS_Triumphant, based on the wording of your post, you get the "friendly warning" part of this post - do this again, and you get a real one.

 

[RedSpar]

Re: Matt Jeffries original shuttle design

Ooh that looks fun to play with, I'll have to try that out.

I didn't put too much thought into the front gear since you won't be able to see much of it, but those fixes you suggested Cary will be easy to do.

When I do the rear strut, I'll make sure I take my time on it since it will be very visible.

 

[RedSpar]

Re: Matt Jeffries original shuttle design

OK changed the gear a bit... Added supports along the long axis. I left the pad itself its original thickness because I think it looks better and also it has to brunt a lot of air friction down there.

Quick screencaps from the viewport window:

Gear in up position:

Gear in down position:

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Re: Matt Jeffries original shuttle design

OK changed the gear a bit... Added supports along the long axis. I left the pad itself its original thickness because I think it looks better and also it has to brunt a lot of air friction down there.

Quick screencaps from the viewport window:

Ah, now that's a thing of beauty...

One minor tweak you MIGHT want to do... in order to make it look more like contemporary design... would be to slightly beef up the rib, ONLY where the support shaft pins pass through. This is fairly common when working with cast parts, though not so much when dealing with welded subassemblies. If dealing with "replicated" parts, I'd tend to lean towards the casting side of things...

One question.. I know you're basing this in large part upon the Space 1999 Eagle landing pads, but have you considered the purpose and function of the little "scissor/hinge" piece at the front? These never made a whole lot of sense with the Eagle, but at least in that case they seemed to be, potentially, able to apply small forces to the pad to ensure that it touched the ground parallel (or as nearly so as possible) to the ground's surface.

Real aircraft (or spacecraft) landing gear often have something somewhat similar, but those elements are quite a bit different, and are generally part of the shock-absorbtion scheme.

Here's the best example of a real-world version which I could find in a quick internet search. (again, not gonna hotlink, so just click the link)

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1296050/L/

In this case, the wheel is actually ON the "scissor" element, which also intersects the main vertical strut. But there's a second shock-absorbing strut at the front, attached to the other end of the "scissor" element. This makes for excellent gear articulation and the maximum shock-absorbtion while still maintaining a very rigid (at the maximum deflection of the scissor element) structure, very difficult to collapse.

And for something more familiar, here's the gear on the EF-18.
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1228447/L/

And for something truly cutting-edge, here's the nosegear for the F-35...
http://www.flightglobal.com/article...oodrich-ships-landing-nose-gear-for-f-35.html

Just in case you're interested...

 

[B.J.]

Re: Matt Jeffries original shuttle design

Just to add to Cary's statement, here's a bit closer pic of some nose gears:
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Singapore---Air/Grumman-E-2C-Hawkeye/1397284/L/
http://www.airliners.net/photo/British-Airways/Hawker-Siddeley-HS-121/1352321/L/
In this case, that "scissor" element is used to keep the piston from over-extending.

However, on the 747 main gear:
http://www.airliners.net/photo/KLM---Royal/Boeing-747-406M/1116891/L/
...it's used to help position the gear for landing. It's also a lot beefier and has some drive elements of its own.