Ess Edinburgh Heavy Corvette

AeroplaneDriver · December 18, 2007, 10:39:22 AM

I've been in a sci-fi mood lately, and while browsing through boxes from the stash last weekend the shape of an upturned F-14 fuselage caught my imagination.

So....

The European Space Ship 'Edinburgh' is a British-crewed heavy corvette tasked with patroling the space between Mars and Jupiter, protecting the mining outposts in the Asteroid Belt and the shipping routes from pirates.

The Edinburgh is a "Seattle" Class ship built by General Dynamics/BAES at the lunar shipyards. It is significant in being the first military vessel to use Warp Drive.

The Seattle Class drive unit has two Warp Field Generators projecting amidships, powered by a GE Anti-matter Reactor Unit with Dark Matter manipulators.

While a massive leap forward from the Newtonian propulsion of the nuclear-ion drives common on spacecraft by the dawn of the 22nd Century, this early Warp Drive is still very primitive. The warp field generators on the Edinburgh are only capable of transient warp fields with lengthy charging cycles between warp jumps. This means that the ship moves through space under Nuclear-Ion propulsion between warp jumps of 5-8 microseconds, with a 3-6 hour charge cycle between jumps.

For science fiction fans expecting rainbow colors and streaking starfields, the reality of warp travel may seem very mundane. To the ships occupants a warp jump is barely noticable, with just a slight change in the view outside accompanying each transit. To an outside observer with a God's Eye View of the jump the ship's warp generators wold glow dimly for a few minutes, then the ship would simply disappear, only to reappear a few microseconds later several million miles further along its course.

This primitive warp drive works well over the distances covered within the Solar System, allowing an Earth-Jupiter transit in a matter of days. However, it is still too primitive for true interstellar travel.

Dr. Sanjay Ranganath of the Bangalore Insitue of Astrophysics compares this early warp drive to the Whittle jet engine of the early 20th century. While a huge step forward, breaking down barriers and setting new benchmarks, the Whittle turbojet was a long way from the Rolls-Royce RB309 Swale hydrogen turbines of the mid-21st century. To cary the gas turbine analogy further, Dr. Ranganath points out that what is needed for interstellar travel is at least the warp equivelent of an early generation turbofan engine.

I'll post more technical details and backstory as the build progresses. This ship will exist in the same timeline as my Talon Martian Assault Lander and probably my (still incomplete!) Vampire escort fighter

The forward fuselage will be scratchbuilt, probably from balsa covered with shet styrene ans some Milliput. That will be the project for this afternoon. The shuttle alongside is made from a Trumpeter 1/350 Greyhound. The rear fuselage was cut away and replaced with sculpted Mulliput. The engein nacelles were attached horizontally to this milliput. The wing is trimmed down and attached backwards, with wingtip cannons made from short sections of a crappy Sidewinder.

cthulhu77 · December 18, 2007, 10:57:17 AM

Way cool, great backstory. Looking forward to some more !

nev · December 18, 2007, 11:14:02 AM

Thats some fine work there Nick, but its still a little bit too obviously a Tomcat for my liking - a few mods to "disguise" its origins would go a long way IMO

AeroplaneDriver · December 18, 2007, 11:17:33 AM

QuoteThats some fine work there Nick, but its still a little bit too obviously a Tomcat for my liking - a few mods to "disguise" its origins would go a long way IMO

Dont worry Nev. It's still very early days for this project. It should be a lot less 'Tomcatty' by the end.

ysi_maniac · December 18, 2007, 11:20:27 AM

Absolutely gorgeous bttb

PolluxDeltaSeven · December 18, 2007, 04:04:33 PM

It was YOU!!!!

YOU did the amazing Talon and Vampire space ships!!!!

I had pictures of them in my computer, but just didn't remember who wrote these stories, who build those models! I even didn't remember the name of the models or on what forum I saw them!!

So, NOW I could congratulate you!! There probably are some of the most amazing builds I ever saw! You made them so real that we just totally forgot that there are SR-71 or F-14 under!!

I'm sure that this one will be as amazing as the two firsts!!

PS: I have dozens of destroyed models at home, and I never put them on the trash, hopping that one day I suddenly have a brilliant idea like yours!!

gooberliberation · December 18, 2007, 10:03:56 PM

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles...s9tm.htm#elkins

Another sci-fi application of a tomcat's fuselage.

AeroplaneDriver · December 19, 2007, 07:52:13 AM

Well, I've hit a stumbling block (Modeler's Block?). The layout of the rear fuselage is looking good, but I cant find a forward/nose configuration that looks 'right'. Yesterday I went through about four different configurations, from carved balsa to a milliput 'airliner-style' nose to a tubular forward section with a raised bridge section. The last is my favorite, but I'm struggling to integrate it into the rear.

This one may need to be set aside while I wait for inspiration.

I'm going to work with it a bit more, but if I cant get it to work out right I may set it aside for a quick build so I dont get discouraged with it.

Sisko · December 19, 2007, 01:21:44 PM

Looks cool.

For the front section go for rectangular blocky style ala Babylon 5 omega class destroyers. It doesn't have to aerodynamic to look cool.

Plenty of anntennas and other bits and pieces hanging off it would look good.

Space ships would be a lot like navy ships. They would keep getting added to as electroincs and systems were changed out and upgraded.

Eddie M. · December 19, 2007, 06:02:39 PM

This is looking very cool! Your imagination is matched by your workmanship. Looking forward to the trip....

Eddie

BlackOps · December 19, 2007, 08:39:56 PM

AD, I love when you take these sci-fi detours! very cool stuff! (been in a bit of a sci-fi mood myself lately) Very nice shapes, lookin' forward to seeing how these come along.

frank2056 · December 20, 2007, 06:57:04 AM

The "Shrike" looks great; I have that Trumpeter Greyhound kit and you've done a great job subverting it.

Mike Wren · December 20, 2007, 07:06:50 AM

very interesting...

AeroplaneDriver · December 20, 2007, 07:28:42 AM

Thanks for the comments and encouragement guys, but this one is on hold until after Christmas. I'm at a sticking point on the front of the ship, and I'm hoping I may find inspiration from some of the vast amount of packaging and assorted plastic crap that will be around the house over Christmas. So...I'm stowing the Squadron Green and Milliput for a week or so and starting a nice quickie OOB build.

Back to the future in a week or two hopefully!