Shuttlecraft Galileo Blueprints by Phil Broad

[Irishman]

Speaking generally of Phil Broad’s blueprints, and more specifically of the landing gear: does anyone have any idea of whether or not the original team intended for the landing gear to be animated to retract into the hull?

I’m asking because I’m in the middle of modeling the landing gear, and some elements look like they had it in mind, while others could be interpreted as being static.

 

[Warped9]

Well, the filming miniature was always shown with the rear strut in place so it doesn't look like it was ever meant to retract. But the forward pads under the nacelles look like they were designed to retract as the filming miniature never showed them extended except when the miniature was shown on the hangar flight deck also mimicking the fullsize exterior mockup showing the pads extended while the ship was landed.

 

[MGagen]

FWIW, here's my solution, which I used on my digital Shuttlecraft model:



I figured they would retract and roll up into the nacelle profile; but flatten out when extended. It is certainly not how the set piece was handled, but I was going for a "real" shuttlecraft...

 

[Irishman]

How did you approach the "real" rear landing gear?

 

[MGagen]

I pretty well duplicated what was on the set piece mock up. It was a functional, retractable landing gear from an aircraft. Based on how it is anchored to the hull, it can adjust the height of the rear of the shuttle and the angle of that strut. It does not appear to be able to retract all the way against the hull. My model reflects this arrangement.

 

[Donnewtype]

I think I might have found one or two pictures of them on the web and used them to work up a model of the shuttle in Sketchup as well. I didn't think of flexible landing pad for the nacelles, looks good though.

 

[Warped9]

The familiar Class F design seen in TOS was not scaled properly as seen onscreen. MJ originally envisioned a smaller craft as evidenced by the fullsize exterior mockup (and even it was slightly undersized). The original interior set was to reflect that smaller size yet for production reasons (to get the bulky cameras in there) they upsized the interior. Now you have an interior that cannot possibly fit inside the exterior as seen. Over the years I managed to achieve a compromise where the interior is reduced slightly and the exterior is enlarged slightly to make them fit together. The result was a shuttlecraft exterior that looks exactly as it did onscreen with an interior near exactly what we see onscreen. However, as a result the exterior miniature we see in the hangar deck onscreen is now too small to fit to scale.

It would actually look more like this.