First Project: The AE-35 Unit! Advice appreciated
- Thread starter Abitofcredit
- Start date
It's definitely Futura.
My version has the text “AE POSITIONAL AOS” as the first line, since that lines up reasonably closely to what the blobs look like. Plus it kind of makes sense - it's a positional device for the antenna, and AOS is a NASA Apollo acronym meaning “acquisition of signal”.
My version has the text “AE POSITIONAL AOS” as the first line, since that lines up reasonably closely to what the blobs look like. Plus it kind of makes sense - it's a positional device for the antenna, and AOS is a NASA Apollo acronym meaning “acquisition of signal”.
I'm pretty confident that the first line reads "A.E. BORESIGHT [something]", and a little less confident that the "something" is "ADV."
Third line doesn't have enough characters for a "1" after "UNIT" but it is an interesting thought.
Here's the image with my text below it. The last three characters of the first line are obscured in this image due to the actor's finger.
2nd line from the bottom could have a number of possible characters. My initial impression was "MOD L.A. 375", but augmenting a different image suggested "MOD L.A. JPL" to me, at least. "MOD L.A. 3PC" is as valid a possibility as either of these.
That bottom line is puzzling. I'm leaning toward "Op. MAN [something]" as well ... it's the "something" that's the kicker. After "MAN" there are two characters, a space, 4 characters, a space, and two more characters. I'm uncertain if there is a space between "MAN" and the next two characters, or perhaps a period. Or even an apostrophe, as in "MAN'FD" short for "Manufactured". The four characters could be letters, or as I suggested earlier, possibly a year such as 1954 or 1956. The last two characters are anyone's guess - I'm clueless.
Here's the image with my current text alongside it (2nd line could still be any of the ones mentioned):
And yes, I used Futura Heavy BT for the text. It lines up extremely well with the image.
No sooner did I say "I'm clueless" than I may have a clue. What if the whole bottom line is a date? Perhaps "MAR 24, 1956" although that still leaves the mystery of the first two and last two characters. If this was a real test plate that was reused for the prop, maybe this is a revision date.
One last point: the second character of the last line is the only lower-case characters on the entire plate. That's gotta mean something. If the line is a revision date or date after which it was to be put into service, perhaps "Op." is an abbreviation for "Operational" as in "Operational as of this date".
Anyone?
Third line doesn't have enough characters for a "1" after "UNIT" but it is an interesting thought.
Here's the image with my text below it. The last three characters of the first line are obscured in this image due to the actor's finger.
2nd line from the bottom could have a number of possible characters. My initial impression was "MOD L.A. 375", but augmenting a different image suggested "MOD L.A. JPL" to me, at least. "MOD L.A. 3PC" is as valid a possibility as either of these.
That bottom line is puzzling. I'm leaning toward "Op. MAN [something]" as well ... it's the "something" that's the kicker. After "MAN" there are two characters, a space, 4 characters, a space, and two more characters. I'm uncertain if there is a space between "MAN" and the next two characters, or perhaps a period. Or even an apostrophe, as in "MAN'FD" short for "Manufactured". The four characters could be letters, or as I suggested earlier, possibly a year such as 1954 or 1956. The last two characters are anyone's guess - I'm clueless.
Here's the image with my current text alongside it (2nd line could still be any of the ones mentioned):
And yes, I used Futura Heavy BT for the text. It lines up extremely well with the image.
No sooner did I say "I'm clueless" than I may have a clue. What if the whole bottom line is a date? Perhaps "MAR 24, 1956" although that still leaves the mystery of the first two and last two characters. If this was a real test plate that was reused for the prop, maybe this is a revision date.
One last point: the second character of the last line is the only lower-case characters on the entire plate. That's gotta mean something. If the line is a revision date or date after which it was to be put into service, perhaps "Op." is an abbreviation for "Operational" as in "Operational as of this date".
Anyone?
Last edited:
I'm truly and fully impressed by you research/work on that prop Aahz
I was skeptical about BORESIGHT, since it seemed a bit on the nose, but I now think you're right, having played with 4K captures a whole bunch. Which I guess makes sense, since it is a term used (by analogy to weapons) for the alignment of directional antennas. Thanks! I'm sticking with AOS (acquisition of signal) after that.
I'm going for "operations manual", given that we have other references in the movie, here and there, telling people to refer to this or that. In which case the four character block is PARA. The two character blocks are illegible numbers. I've put Op MAN 94 PARA 17 since that seems to be close visually. The main mystery is why the "p" in "Op" is lowercase.
Update and correction again: crap... I've re-measured the proportions in various pics, rather than going by the seeming pin count in that photo, and I now think they were the smaller Plessey plug after all. Dammit. Now I have a useless bunch of large Plessey plugs...
