Tuesday, June 2, 2009

ATHENA - Steampunk Airship (6)

As mentioned in the comments, I spent quite some time with a water level to get all pieces perpendicular.
But it was well worth the effort, and now I can be sure, all peices are aligned properly. Also you can see here the rear area that will host the 3 main rotors.
Now I can finally see how huge this bugger is going to be :-P
I have to admit, it is bigger than I thought *chuckle*
On the other hand, this leaves me now with some room to experiment. Looking at the size of the upper deck, I can see to convert it into a deck, similar to an modern aircraft carrier - bridge and stuff on one side, to leave room for a full length deck - while my plan orignally envisioned the bridge being full width at the end...
I will send some more time tinkering about this, but I could really see, the bridge taking one half of the deck, and the rest being available as flight deck ... any suggestions or ideas from your side?
Well, while thinking about the bridge, I continued with the main rudder - despite the wings will have more side-rudders.

And I built the central wing mounting. The central wing will host the secondary engine, that can be rotated for vertical and horizontal drive.

Then I started cutting the main pieces for the wing.

But I have to spend some more effort on the engine, as the plan that I originally had is not really practical, so I have to look for a better, easier, and replicatable solution - I think I found it in the cap of a spray can, but I will have to check this out at home.
EDIT:
I toyed some ideas in CorelDraw.
With this layout I would have a launch deck on one side (grey area) that would have a forward ramp like some of the Russian and British carriers.
The lift would be in the center (where the blimp body is widest and deepest). Will 20x13cm be big enough? interceptors would have fold wings....
Beneath the Launch deck would be room for another small AA turret, wile besides it would be a large main AA gun as well as a set of vertical missile launchers (like on modern Submarines?)

If I can get all these mounted it would give the following theoretical Fields of Fire for the deck AA.
What do you think?
Klaus