SPACE IN MINIATURE

Scale: 1/72 to 1/96 (Depending on who you talk to)

History:

Developed as a sub-variant of the standard Eagle transport, the Rescue Eagle is designed to provide dedicated search and rescue services, as well as act as a recovery and medical transport ship. The specialized equipment is contained in a modified transport pod, painted in a special red and white livery to distinguish it from other Eagle transports. Any Eagle transport can carry the rescue pod, even Eagles equipped with weaponry (as was seen very briefly in the episode "Wargames")

This Eagle is a standard MPC/Fundimensions Eagle kit built straight from the box. I do have plans to build an accurized Eagle eventually, but wanted to see what a little painting and detailing could do to the standard kit. The Fundimensions kit was used since I had already started work on it long before the AMT/Ertl reissue became available. The only plastic modification I made was to accurize the side pod thrusters by filling the alignment holes and drilling out the thruster exhaust ports with a pin vise.

Painting was done with mixtures of Testors Model Master flat white and light gray for the body color, Testors black for the command module window inserts, Testors silver for the engine bells (looks great when airbrushed) and Polly S Fire Red for the rescue stripes on the pod. Darker gray paneling was added to the model to provide some visual breakup to the white coloring of the model. A light wash and drybrushing were also used to give the model the "Lunar" look.

I opted to do a rescue Eagle to add a little color to the model and because I am also a fan of fire and rescue service equipment. The masking for the red striping was very time consuming and the paintjob required several touchups of pink areas from overspray, but the results were worth it in my opinion. The striping on the spine was done with different widths of red, yellow and black Pactra Trim Stripe tape. The Pactra stuff might actually be repackaged Letraset brand tape as the packages indicate that the tapes are made in the United Kingdom, where Letraset is king.

Except for the black thruster heat shield decals on the side pods, the Eagle's markings were printed out on an ALPS printer and applied as decals. I also designed decals for the cut out recesses in the cage pods to provide a hint of recessed detailing, without having to resort to cutting out the cages and building up detail myself. Once the cage decals were in place, a dark wash of Tamiya german gray was applied to the recesses to simulate shadows in the cage recesses. Eagle number markings for the sliding doors were also created and printed with an ALPS printer. I designated this model as Eagle 4 since it tended to survive most of the abuse thrown at it on the show while Eagles 1 and 2 typically got badly trashed or destroyed from week to week (they must have been flown by red shirts from Star Trek).

Image: Rear view, without the pod