Skycycle - Circa 1982

[vectorzero]

Having been a member for a while now, its time to publish some work.

To kick off with here is something that I built around 1982. As you would suspect, I was heavily influenced at that time by Star Wars, Alien, and to some extent Outland.

I believe the most direct influence for the Skycycle (apart from motorbikes - I will always love them) was the Ron Cobb hopper which was envisaged for Alien but never built (See Scanlon and Gross - The Book of Alien).

The basic premise is a high speed single person transport, where you have to wear a space suit. Basically an engine with a joystick.

I started off with these sketches:

 

[vectorzero]

I didn't take any construction photos at the time, as that would have needed a film camera which I didn't possess.

The model was built in essentially two parts. The front section was carved from balsa wood which had been glued together to form the basic shape. It was then clad in sheet styrene to stabilise the shape, and allow for the details to be added. The back section was a series of hexagonal segments, capped off with a Dymo Labelmaker (remember those!). Then a lot more styre

Many kits died in the detailing, and there are come obvious donors including 1/12th scale Tamiya F1 cars, a TIE Fighter and a Fairchild A10. Originally, the instrument panel was going to be lit by fibre optics, and I believe there is a big finer bundle buried inside. However, there were limited means to provide power in those days, and I gave up. The instruments are actually graph paper with a clear gloss varnish to make them look like glass.

The Saturn V engines have pipes running into them, as do the downward facing nozzles. There are two holes in the side of the model, and the idea was to pump CO2 in to give a working engine effect. Not sure how successful that would have been....

The model won a Bronze medal in the 1982 Model Engineer Exhibition.

Some months after the completion I did manage to take some pictures with an SLR, and slide film. These pictures are 32 years old, and the slides are pretty gritty, but here is the Skycycle as it was when completed. I've tried to offset some of the colour balance as best I can, but hopefully you can see how design led to the finished article.

 

[vectorzero]

To bring this thread up to date, the Skycycle was kept in various cupboards over the years. During the house move that claimed its peers (the Thor missile, and a ground effect tank), I decided to give it a display case.

The following pictures, show the model today, and although it has some damage it has held up remarkably well given the underlying wooden construction. Its going to get some TLC over the next few months, and some broken parts fixed / replaced / upgraded.

Here's it in its case with broken bits, and on the workbench being inspected. In the side shot you can see in the background that Ron Cobb prototype that I might build one day. Sharp eyed viewers will notice an Horizon ED-209 being butchered. More of that in another thread.

 

[MFP 2020]

Gorgeous work, but there's one thing I'm sure we're all wondering:

Did you successfully make it across the Grand Canyon?

 

[vectorzero]

For those interested, here are a series of close ups. Forgive the dust - its going to take a while and some care to get rid of it.

It's so long ago, that I can't quite recall some details of the painting. It's highly likely to be Enamel applied as a base coat using an airbrush, and then a lighter shade applied over many of the panels. (I was a big fan of Francois Verlinden, and that's his technique.)

The whole model was then given a black wash - again in Enamel, although I would probably go with acrylic these days. Dry brushing to highlight the details and then individual parts picked out with some tiny brushes.

In the closeup of the bottom, you can see the wany edge where I had difficulty getting the cladding to follow a clean line between the curved side and the base of the forward section. I'm impressed that the epoxy adhesive has kept this all together for so long.

The probes that have come off were adapters for a polar type of gas lighter recharger. As they were just contact glued, its not surprising they've come off.

A similar story with the main undercarriage. This will be modified and a set of pins made so it stays stuck in the future.

The main drive has a series of petal like vanes (thank you Nostromo), which may get an upgrade during refurbishment.

The instruments are the best I could do at the time, and my least favourite part of the Skycycle. However, I'm going to resist the temptation to improve them.

Hope you like the Skycycle.

 

[SofaKing01]

That is fantastic! And your still fiddling with it 31 years later? AWESOME!

You should make a full scale prop...

 

[division 6]

Reminds me of the Grav Bike mini's I had for playing Gamma World.

 

[vectorzero]

Gorgeous work, but there's one thing I'm sure we're all wondering:

Did you successfully make it across the Grand Canyon?

Thank you. Hopefully there's enough engine there not to end up at the bottom of most canyons. I left off the seat belts as I recall Evel Knievel was somewhat inconvenienced by being tied to his bike when the Snake River jump went a bit wrong.

Maybe I can help this guy with the design of his new canyon jumper!

That is fantastic! And your still fiddling with it 31 years later? AWESOME!

You should make a full scale prop...

Thank you for the feedback. There are plans for some new kit builds, replicas and original work, and some of it will be much bigger. But full scale? I think I'll leave that down to you. Love the stuff you're doing with the Falcon - its one of my favourite threads.