Before the build, I did consider the E9's, but rejected it as the D12's have much greater thrust. The four A10-PT's, besides gaining "mission points" for the NAR contest, added additional thrust for liftoff without adding that much extra weight. As mentioned in my
EMRR review, it only took one additional ounce of clay noseweight to keep it stable.

__________________
Dave, NAR # 21853 SR.

As someone who worked in CG for quite some time, I now have such a huge appreciation for the original model builders, puppeteers, engineers and camera operators that made all of the ships and characters come to life.

I still think that the original trilogy and other big movies of that era under ILM/Stan Winston employed some of the finest work that's ever been translated to the big screen. Even with the limitations of the day, the ugliest puppet or model still looked 10x more believable than any cg counterpart. The ships also have almost a sort or organic , real-world broken-in quality that is incredibly difficult to reproduce in a digital, pixel-based environment.

Everything looked real, because, well.. essentially it was!! Maybe CG will someday have a renaissance, but in my opinion a lot of the people in the industry rely too heavily on using the latest programs and tools rather than drawing from the practical, real-world experience in traditional mediums that the old-school FX guys brought to the table.

Thanks to Royatl for confirming the part match, and especially Roger (jadebox) for offering to send me the required parts for... free! What a guy!

Thanks all,

Matt

I have a junk X Wing in my basement
PM me, I gotta clean house.
Mark T

Digressing a little ....

At the Sci-Fi convention my wife and I attend once or twice a year, there are usually displays of movie models and props - a few that were actually used for filming but most are replicas like you're building. The most impressive I've seen was a Battlestar Galactica (from the new series) that was about 10- or 12-foot long and very detailed.

When I was young, I saw some original models from the original Star Trek series on display at a museum or science center. I think it was when my family visited Pittsburg so it may have been at the palentarium. This wasn't that long after the series when off the air - about the time it was becoming popular in syndication. 'Course, since then I've seen the Enterprise at the Smithsonian.

Speaking of the Smithsonian ... A member of the Mustang car club we belong to was a model maker for Lockheed Martin for many years. He worked on the Manned Maneuvering Unit model that is at the Smithsonian. He also worked on models of many space probes. The photo album he showed me was very impressive.

-- Roger