Functional Falcon wip (plans)

[CrazyCraig]

I decided to put up these plans in case somebody might find them interesting. Vacformedhero put the idea in a few weeks ago, yes, these are definately a Beta release.

Most of the elements inteded to go in are not present on these plans yet, on older plans yes, but not here. This should be the final dimentions and proportions, just all the details to come.
The scale is a 51% increase on the stated dimention of the official set plans (TESB) released in the book Star Wars The Blueprints by J W Rinzler : 131 feet long by 95 feet six inches wide, excluding the the cockpit. Height is 24 feet four inches to the gun-well-disk plating, not including the guns 'hump' mounting. The result of that is the overall measurements make it about 16/17 % over the official Lucasfilm figures. The plan-view proportions are based on scans of the book's cover and double-page spread stitched together - so its not perfect. Those proportions are massaged to match the stated numbers, in feet and inches, of the cover. I wouldn't be surprised to find someone finding my scaling to be a bit off - I am hopless with maths and frequently misscalculate even with a claculator.

The plans are drawn in the style of the old Star Wars Deckpans Alliance website. I kept this cartoon style because I like it and I've been using a very old programe to do it in, and because this is really only a proof-of-concept plan, I saw no reason to change that. There is a CAD programe but I'm yet to learn to use it - that may or may not come.

I must thank Bob Brown - Ship of Riddles - for thinking and existing. This would not be without him. All hail the cosen one!

The idea of these plans is to merge the internal set plans with the external dimensions to make a functional whole - to find out how the Falcon was meant to be. The end result will be a model. The only known set dimentions I have changed, so far, is that of the ring corridor - not as large as it was originally intended, but larger and positioned differently than the set. Also the boarding ramp dimentions are changed to match the exterior. More to come....someday.

 

[CrazyCraig]

This is how I decided to make the boarding ramp work. Hopefully its clear enough not to need too much explaination. It is inspired by a tail lift used on trucks/lorries. It partially uses the existing ramp struts to move people/cargo from the ramp on the ground up to the ring corridor. The structure in the center of the ship, on the ground, is the cargo lift from the book Millenium Falcon Owner's Workshop Manual.

 

[CrazyCraig]

After deciding to post these I realised that I'd need to show the lift-tube, as seen in TESB, which Lando and Leia rescue Luke through. The dimentions of this are likely smaller than the set, but I don't have the dimentions. To work the lift needs to be in two sections: main part comes over horizontally, lower part then comes up to join and seal at top. After that you then need a door in the side of the tube for entry/exit. Dumb I know but at least it fits and works, logically - in the real-world it'd be a headache. Then in the real-world it wouldn't be on the Starboard side either.

 

[CrazyCraig]

After that I need to show that the lift-tube is not on the side that Lucasfilm put it in plans. These images show, categorically with out any room for doubt, that the lift is on the starboard side of the ship. The images are reinforced with the logic seen on film: the movement of the ship under Luke to Starboard, and Lando taking him to Leia in the cockpit which is now closer and on the same side of the ship as the lift - instead of taking him from Port, past the medical bunk, to Starboard and then back to Port.

The surface details are from the 5 foot Falcon, Starboard side - not Port. The far-right image is the Port side - the details are completely different.

 

[CrazyCraig]

These plan images come out small and blury. They may not be easy for people to interpret. Not sure why, must have something to do with PhotoBucket. Appologies.

 

[Sergiotron]

Amazing work!

 

[Tom1971]

I love it.

Excellent work.

Tom

 

[astroboy]

Sweetness

Sent from my SM-N910W8 using Tapatalk

 

[Vacformedhero]

I love your locations for crew escape pods, when I was a kid I'd always envisioned that the missing escape pods were fitted where the external docking doors are( don't know why we call them docking doors as we've never seen them being used ever , medical frigate had to be a top hatch and the ramp every other time)
so I thought that the docking hatches were rough looking because as the imperial scanning crew mentioned the logs indicated the escape pods had been launched

 

[CrazyCraig]

I love your locations for crew escape pods, when I was a kid I'd always envisioned that the missing escape pods were fitted where the external docking doors are( don't know why we call them docking doors as we've never seen them being used ever , medical frigate had to be a top hatch and the ramp every other time)
so I thought that the docking hatches were rough looking because as the imperial scanning crew mentioned the logs indicated the escape pods had been launched

Well the docking hatches are bound to look rough after having pods shot out of them. The plan matches your own in universe ideas, so it must be true.

 

[CrazyCraig]

I decided to add a side-view of the plans to show the effect of making the hull height accomodate the set dimensions of the gun-well. Also to illustrate my idea for the engines which have been badly concieved in official plans. The solution to the engines being way too small (officially) is to make them horse-shoe shaped, when viewed from the side (think of Tantive engines) in green. This makes them 'fill' the entire engine-quater and retain the deck space of the Lucasfilm plans.

The guns used are the full-size set prop guns, for anyone who thinks they look odd. Prop thread http://www.therpf.com/f11/millenium-falcon-prop-guns-236527/

 

[CrazyCraig]

After doing the engine view above I decided to add a ventral view because while drawing the engines I discovered that the set plan has two less thrust vector plates than the 5' model. The set had 11 while the model has 13. The vector plates are the roughly rectangular plates at the rear above and below the engine exhaust.

This is the only plan I've seen that has the landing gear doors shown correctly, as tri-fold doors not bi-fold. Right size too.

 

[Galactican]

This screams for a scratch-build! Thank you for these drawings! Keep on, please!

 

[JPCOdessa70]

Hi Craig,

I'm currently building the interior of the Falcon based on the plans I got from Hayes Manual & Cross section books. If you had this done a year ago I would have used your plans as it is definitely more accurate to scale and everything can fit. I'm almost at 75% complete. I specially like the double floor ring corridor you made.

Just a quick one, with Episode VII the turret ring is now rotating...How would that appear it your plans?

Also do you plan to do a side view cross section of the Landing gears showing deployed and stored position?

 

[kamandi]

If it's canon now that the center turrets rotate I'm guessing there would need to be a "park" position for entrance and egress. The tunnels would occasionally not line up with the hallway door or even the other turret room. Would your upper and lower hallways need to rotate as well?

 

[CrazyCraig]

This screams for a scratch-build! Thank you for these drawings! Keep on, please!

Thanks, glad you appreciate them. Its allways been intended to be a scratch build for me.

 

[CrazyCraig]

Hi Craig,

I'm currently building the interior of the Falcon based on the plans I got from Hayes Manual & Cross section books. If you had this done a year ago I would have used your plans as it is definitely more accurate to scale and everything can fit. I'm almost at 75% complete. I specially like the double floor ring corridor you made.

First off JPCOdessa70, appologies for interupting your build and for me for being a significant arsehole by creating something that contradicts Lucasfilm. I'm sure I'd not be the only one who can't wait to see you finish that and show us some pics. It'll be valuable and instructive for us to see.
I intend to add as many of the elements from those books you have as I can. It was allways an irritation that they allowed things not to fit - it just needed some thought.
I did have these a year ago, not quite this incarnation though. There have been umpteen revisions and versions and I have been fiddling with this for years.
The extra ring-corridors came relativlely late in the design (me compartmentalising). I decided to tackle the boarding-ramp and realised that there needed to be at least part of a corridor at it's end to match the film. Then it hit me like a tonn of bricks! With the added hull height due to the gun-well there was room for a corridor above and below and that would match the film too! The logic I came up with for them was to give access to parts of the engines, secape pods, and other systems with entrance/egress also.

 

[CrazyCraig]

Just a quick one, with Episode VII the turret ring is now rotating...How would that appear it your plans?

At this stage I'm not going to give it any thought. It could just be an easter-egg and they're just '***** with us as in the missing landing-gear doors. I'll wait 'till it is official and in hard-copy. Though I might stock-up on headache tablets in the mean time.

 

[CrazyCraig]

Also do you plan to do a side view cross section of the Landing gears showing deployed and stored position?

I've done that already, though its at the 40% scale not this final 51%. Almost nothing will change appart from the scale - probably. I may put it up so you can see.

 

[CrazyCraig]

If it's canon now that the center turrets rotate I'm guessing there would need to be a "park" position for entrance and egress. The tunnels would occasionally not line up with the hallway door or even the other turret room. Would your upper and lower hallways need to rotate as well?

Yes you would need a 'park' and you wouldn't need that dog-leg section at the end of the cocpit-corridor to meet the ladder either. You could just rotate to lineup the ladder tunnel wth the cockpit-corridor for enrty. You could probaly make the upper and lower corridors rotate with a fixed tunnnel ladder but that would be unwieldy and dumb.
With this plan you'd need to reshape or remove the inner wall of those upper and lower corridors to alow the ladder to rotate inside them.
At this stage (not giving it alot of thought) the best solution would be to leave the ladder-tunnel fixed (top+bottom turrets indipendant) and have the position of the tunnel being seen on film as an instance of it, just at that time, lining up with the ladder as it moves. Of course, there's no need for doors sealing off the tunnel at either end 'cause people like having their limbs lopped off when the turret rotates.