Now, as the collection is completed, I re-started to work on my own projects. I decided to dis-assemble the Voyager set and re-start a cargo carrier space craft. This came about as I was browsing the internet and stumbled across the following design: ClassicEagle
The ClassicEagle MOC is inspired by the Space:1999 (Oder Mondbasis Alpha-1) Eagle spaceship and has been adopted to be inline with a ClassicSpace layout / design. So based on this idea, I started a new design project in Stud.IO App. I was initially hoping to take the lazy route and find a LDraw file of this build on the internet, but there was none. So I had to do it by myself and based on the pictures you find on the page above.
It took a while to get started and to understand from the pictures, how the Eagle was constructed. The middle section with the grid was the easiest, the cockpit and Engine section and the interfaces for both, was less clear. While I kept moving forward and changing designs, I kept the basic idea of the ClassicEagle but also made some minor adaptations e.g. on the rear section of the cockpit, I used the cone engines from the classic sets etc. In between I took all pieces and I could get and made a first trial assembly, especially to test the robustness of the grid section.
The additional feature I decided to add, was that the “payload” under the grid should not only be detachable as in the original MOC, but actually be replaceable with other modules that would plug-in there. The detachment of the payload module was anyhow not clear to me, how this done in the MOC and I had serious doubt that my design with the pins would work … There was simply no room to “plug” the pins into the holes (Come to this later). Anyway I continued and in the end I had a version designed, with a crane system as the payload module:
As for inserting the payload module … Well this is a digital design and you can make it happen. But more later, when I explain the real build.
Continues here …