Question r.e. the 11 foot model...

[Trekwatcher]

I was recently in DC and visited the Air and Space Museum to see, among other things, the 11 footer.

Obviously the paint scheme has been changed as have other details.

Three questions I had for anybody out there who might know.

1) The starboard side is fully detailed but the port side of the model is relatively unfinished. Does anybody know why this is?

2) On the port side of the primary to secondary hull support pylon there is a large square plate bolted on. Was this to cover an access port for effects people to access the innards or is this to cover something else (damage?) that occured later?

3) Under each warp nacelle's Bussard ramscoop, there are only two of those little rectangular things, whereas all models always have three of them. Also, both nacelles have them on the starboard side only, with the port-most one missing. Does anybody also know why this is? Was this how it was during filming?

Many thanks in advance!

 

[Christopher]

The answer to your second question is also the answer to your first, and probably your third. If memory serves, the model was always filmed from the starboard side because the port side had a big hole in it for all the cables and stuff that powered the lights and the motors inside the nacelle caps. Whenever they had to show the ship's port side, they just shot the starboard side and flipped the film over (and they actually had a reverse set of decals to apply to it to make it convincing). So the port side didn't have to be fully detailed, since it was never filmed.

 

[Professor Moriarty]

Christopher is completely correct in his response to your first two questions.

Regarding the third, I'm fairly sure that is damage to the model. I'm pretty sure the eleven footer used to have three boxes under and behind each nacelle dome cap; one on each nacelle was lost over the years.

Of course, I've been known to be wrong in the past. I think it happened on a Tuesday.

 

[Forbin]

Christopher nailed it. It was less expensive to build to model with detail only on one side, and shoot it from only one side.

IIRC, Model-maker Richard Datin's bill for building the gray lady was only around $3k!

 

[Hofner]

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't they run the cabling going to the nacelles on the port side of the nacelle pylons instead of inside it? I seem to remember it was visible once or twice.

Robert

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

In some shots of the Enterprise approaching K7, it looks like you can see cables running up the side of the pylon between the secondary hull and the saucer.

 

[doctorwho 03]

I think the missing rectangular boxes coincides with just filming the starboard side. The third box of either nacelle would be obscured by the other boxes or the nacelle itself so it was probably easier not to build it. At least that's what I think was the reasoning.

 

[Forbin]

Plenty of photos of the model here:

http://www.cloudster.com/Sets&Vehicles/STEnterprise/EnterpriseTop.htm

The left side:
http://www.cloudster.com/Sets&Vehicles/STEnterprise/ent05.jpg
http://www.cloudster.com/Sets&Vehicles/STEnterprise/ent13.jpg

More pics here:
http://members.aol.com/IDICPage/enterprise.html

Here's the left side again:
http://www.uah.edu/~jim/74ent3.jpg
(The duct tape was probably added by the museum)

 

[gastrof]

Forbin said:
Christopher nailed it. It was less expensive to build to model with detail only on one side, and shoot it from only one side.

IIRC, Model-maker Richard Datin's bill for building the gray lady was only around $3k!

Unless I've misunderstood something, it wasn't a matter of expense but rather a matter of logistics.

They needed to be able to support the heavy thing with a brace that fitted into one side and feed electrical cables in on the same side, as mentioned above.

This meant that side could never be seen on air.

 

[Maurice]

I emailed Richard Datin, the maker of the model, some year ago, and he said the model was designed just to be shot from one side. The support went straight up into the bottom. The the only thing on the "hidden" side were the cables added to power the retrofitted lights.

 

[Christopher]

^^Right -- the support was on the bottom, which naturally makes more sense than putting it in from the side. You can see pictures of it here:

http://startrekhistory.com/restoration/bluescreen.html

If they'd wanted to shoot both sides, they could've run the cables in through the bottom. I'd assume that once they decided to finish only one side, they chose to put the cables in on the other side because that would make them easier to reach.

 

[Trekwatcher]

Yes, the blue support stand is included in the display at the Smithsonian (it is not currently supporting the model, rather it is on the edge of the display).

 

[trevanian]

If you want to see pics of the restoration (or ill-achieved restoration as I think of it), you should hunt up back issues of SCI FI AND FANTASY MODEL magazine (i think it is issue 15), which has an illustrated article on Ed Miarecki's restoration work.

 

[Doug Otte]

Or, you can go here: http://members.aol.com/IDICPage/enterprise.html

Doug

 

[Trekwatcher]

Great site! I like the old paint job much better.

 

[Forbin]

Oh, he royally fucked that up, no question.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Ed exaggerating the weathering and grid lines on the model a bit too much. Nonetheless, its display condition from 1992 forward has been far more accurate than its treatment by NASM prior to Ed's work on it.