# Flying Sub Interior Plans



## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

While I am attaching all the photoetch I made last spring to various models, I came to my set for a 1/24 Flying Sub. Wondering whether to make panels now or save them until later, I started wondering how close a 1/24 interior based on the Fox blueprints would fit into a 1/24 Flying Sub, also based on the Fox blueprints. The only blues I have for the interior are what I've found on line and they are of horrible quality. Based on what I could read and trace, I sketched out these interiors and superimposed the exterior profile.
One thing that really surprised me was how the set designers obviously tried to contain the interior dimensions within the exterior, wherever possible. As anyone who's ever built a model of the FS knows, the control panels and windows don't match exterior to interior at all. 
These drawings are still very rough. I haven't added any instrument detail yet, which will be easy to do as I've already done all the artwork for the 1st season instruments for my etch. 
FS 1 refers to it's first season, FS 2 to its 2nd, and FS 3 to the last season. 
Posting these a) in case any one is interested and b) especially if anyone can make corrections, additions, etc. 
The Fox blues show the girders on either side of the main controls tapering constantly to the floor, without the small kickout that all the models have. Has anyone ever seen this kickout?
Man, were these a pain in the butt to draw, all compound angles and weird perspectives. Time to get back to the real world - plastic and brass and glue.

Attachments moved to:
http://s1004.photobucket.com/albums/af170/jkirkphotos/24 Scale Flying Sub/


----------



## Richard38 (Apr 16, 2002)

starseeker,

I am at the moment trying to accurize a monogram FS-1 and these are just the ticket for replacing those horribly inaccurate interior pieces. Thank you!!!!!!!

Richard


----------



## megabot11 (Aug 3, 2008)

Yeah. It was pretty cramped in there.


----------



## Lloyd Collins (Sep 25, 2004)

Thanks so much for these and your work.


----------



## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

I'm moving all the attachments over to photobucket:
http://s1004.photobucket.com/albums/af170/jkirkphotos/24 Scale Flying Sub/

I have to admit, it's easier to actually make the model than it was to draw the plans, tho' the plans were a necessary starting point. This 1/24 FS interior is one of the easiest models I've built in many, many years. It's just a simple six sided box. I used Plastruct corrugated sheet for the 3 corrugated walls. I think it's 1/8" corrugations, which works out perfectly. I still can't remember what those walls were but the material they were made from was so common in the '60s - like the Jupiter 2s cabin doors, only with a stiff backing. Their surface 1/4" or so thick soft foam (?) with a metallic speckled surface sealed under a clear plastic topcoat. Definitely not rectangular strips that so many models show.
Everything is just roughly cut and taped together at this stage. The first thing to get cemented down will be the 6 girders, once I make the center hatch ring out of rolled styrene. Then the walls can be properly fitted. Of course I can't do much of the front sextant until I have a Flying Sub exterior to fit it into. 
More photos in that photobucket album. I'm going to have to go back and figure out how to make the photos appear a little bigger.


----------



## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

For anyone who wants to make their own decals or photoetch, I've added jpgs of my masters into the above photobucket file. For decals, you'd need to flip the images left to right and add colors of your own choosing.


----------



## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

I was intrigued by the "Next Week On..." on my VHS tape showing instrument panels in the fs where the bunk and lockers are supposed to be, in a hallucinatorily bad episode called "Deadly Cloud". So I rented a dvd and got some screen grabs, photoshopped them together to the size I know that space to be, and searched through other shows and old photos for shots of those instrument panels. They were used on everything Allen did, as well as Fantastic Voyage and who knows what else. Here's the photoshopped capture as well as the start of the master I'm making for photoetching it. I'm not going to use it in the FS, but in the engine room of the J2. 
Oh, the rectangular things sticking out of the fronts of the instrument panels are nothing more than trays for holding the fireworks. So I'm not including them in my J2. 
Deadly Cloud must have been one of Voyage's lowest points. I hope. They truly didn't care on this one. The Seaview had no crew other than the regulars. And they actually set the Flying Sub set on fire. They took a couple instruments off the radio station (unless they had already burned them off in another episode) and let the rest burn as Crane torched the film magazine. But what I did spot there, as I watched in utter disbelief, was that the back wall does not match the two forward side walls. 
The forward side walls are of that round corrugated semi-rigid plastic coated foam material. The back wall is a square corrugated surface. It looks like metal (or wood). So I've revised my plans to show the square corrugations. Now I have to re-build my back wall. Sigh. 
Something else I've noticed: in various angles, even in the same episode, some of the round holes in the outer ceiling ring and in the wall girders are blocked off with something solid behind them. I think these were to block light shining through when wild sections were removed or to block the ceiling lights from the camera. Whatever, I don't think these blocks were consistent or permanent. ?


----------



## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

megabot11 said:


> Yeah. It was pretty cramped in there.


It's an amazingly small set, especially when you put scale figures in it, or stack it on top of a matching J2. Hardly bigger than the lower deck observatory. The chairs are within easy arm's reach of the Simplex controller/flashing light boxes mounted on the walls inside the windows.
(The FS is still just taped together, tho' ll the etch is in it (but not on finished panels). I still haven't made the etch for the lower deck of the J2. Here I'm just testing the fit of paper copies. )


----------



## Carson Dyle (May 7, 2003)

Bob Burns owns the original foam core mock-up for this set. He's very kindly agreed to let me take pix, and I'll post them here once I've done.

Not that they'd be much help with your project, but one thing the mock-up does do is indicate how the wild "pie sections" went together. And, yeah, that set was TINY -- much more cramped and confined than the Moebius or Aurora FS miniatures would have us believe.

Quasi-interesting tidbit of trivial design info re: the similarities between the prow of the Flying Sub and Spindrift... 

I saw Bill Creber over the weekend, and he confirmed that Roger Maas designed the Spindrift without any direct creative input from him (something I'd often wondered about). When I asked about the similarities between the Spindrift and FS, Creber said Maas had intentionally replicated the basic contours of the Flying Sub "nose section" because one of the original production design plans had been to re-use elements of the FS set for the Spindrift flight deck set (Irwin Allen strikes again)!

For the record, Roger Maas is still alive (despite occasionals posts to the contrary on these boards), and he and Creber still keep in touch.


----------



## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

Wow, Bill Creber! I wouldn't even know where to begin asking him questions, there are so many things I'd like to find out about. What fun!
It would be great to see more photos of the Burns model, taken from a modeller's perspective. I've always liked that it was originally designed to have two reactor walls. Obviously somebody decided that certain plot points might require overnight stays and rather than trick out a back storeroom, they wedged in the bunk and lockers.
I too always wondered if they were going to fit the FS into the Spindrift nose. 
I realized that I haven't posted this photo in a long time. This is a terrible copy from Colliver's Voyage book. I know there are better quality versions out there somewhere. But this shows the corrugated front side walls. In the scan, you can barely make out the thin metal diamond pattern just underneath the clear top coat. As I remember the real thing, the clear top coat was very thin and tough and contained tiny flecks of metallic colors throughout. Beneath it and the metal diamond mesh was a tough tightly woven silver fabric and under that what felt like very stiff foam. Or something.
But I have no idea where I encountered this stuff in my yout'. Sound proofing in language labs or music rooms or backstage? Don't even know what I'd search for - old wall coverings on Google?
The same stuff was used around the main escape tube in the missile room and can be spotted all around the Seaview.
Edit: Found a clearer shot of the corrugated shape. It doesn't show the fine diamond pattern but that wouldn't show up on any scale of model anyway.


----------



## Steve H (Feb 8, 2009)

Huh. You know what that stuff looks like? Corrugated room divider. The kind of thing that used to be all the rage in schools that needed to split a large room into smaller rooms, or hotels had a large function space that split into smaller rooms. 

The same sort of thing used for the 'crash doors' separating the bridge from the forward observation area from s.2 onward on the Seaview. 

Yeah, maybe it sounds silly but it was probably cheap and easily available back then, and in the illusional world of TV production it doesn't matter what it's made of, it's all about how it LOOKS. 

Not saying that's the answer but it's what it looks like to me.


----------



## Krel (Jun 7, 2000)

Carson Dyle said:


> Bob Burns owns the original foam core mock-up for this set. He's very kindly agreed to let me take pix, and I'll post them here once I've done.
> 
> Not that they'd be much help with your project, but one thing the mock-up does do is indicate how the wild "pie sections" went together. And, yeah, that set was TINY -- much more cramped and confined than the Moebius or Aurora FS miniatures would have us believe.
> 
> ...


That's interesting. In an old issue of Starlog they had an interview with Paul Zastupnevich where he said that the Spindrift is actually upside down. He said that when the model was delivered to IA, he took it and turned it over, and says, "no, it goes this way".

In the "City Beneath the Sea" pitch film they used the Spindrift cockpit with FS chairs in it for the interior of the Aquafoil.

This page has some photos of Bob Burns FS mockup model, which has two reactor walls: http://www.vttbots.com/flying_sub_burns2.html

David.


----------



## Carson Dyle (May 7, 2003)

Krel said:


> In an old issue of Starlog they had an interview with Paul Zastupnevich where he said that the Spindrift is actually upside down.


Yeah, Creber told me the same story, only substituting the Flying Sub for the Spindrift. 

FWIW, Creber says the FS fins were always intended to extend from the upper hull, but in his original version the cant of the prow jutted outward from the bottom instead of from the top.

Creber also verified that Roger Maas designed the Spindrift with a turtle in mind -- a stylistic allusion that doesn't really work if you turn the ship upside down. 

Makes me wonder if PZ didn't confuse the Spindrift for the FS in that Starlog interview...


----------



## Carson Dyle (May 7, 2003)

Krel said:


> In the "City Beneath the Sea" pitch film they used the Spindrift cockpit with FS chairs in it for the interior of the Aquafoil.


Likewise, IIRC, the flight deck of the Jupiter 2 doubled for that of the Spindrift in IA's original Land of the Giants pitch reel.


----------



## Krel (Jun 7, 2000)

Carson Dyle said:


> Yeah, Creber told me the same story, only substituting the Flying Sub for the Spindrift.
> 
> FWIW, Creber says the FS fins were always intended to extend from the upper hull, but in his original version the cant of the prow jutted outward from the bottom instead of from the top.


All of the art I have seen of the FS shows it how it was in the show. Upside down, it would have messed with the Stingray look. In one of the paintings, the FS seems to be hovering above the water, could they have originally intended for the FS to have vtol abilities? http://www.iann.net/voyage/vessels/flying_sub/vault/



Carson Dyle said:


> Creber also verified that Roger Maas designed the Spindrift with a turtle in mind -- a stylistic allusion that doesn't really work if you turn the ship upside down.


It does if the poor turtle is on it's back, and considering the Spindrift was a crippled aircraft... :lol:



Carson Dyle said:


> Makes me wonder if PZ didn't confuse the Spindrift for the FS in that Starlog interview...


It could be, but what gave the story credibility with me was the position of the hatch, which is on the opposite side from most aircraft.

David.


----------



## Carson Dyle (May 7, 2003)

Krel said:


> It could be, but what gave the story credibility with me was the position of the hatch, which is on the opposite side from most aircraft.
> .


I suspect that may have had more to do with the logistical requirements of the full-scale mock-up in relation to the physical configuration of the sound stage. All things considered, it may simply have been more convenient from a technical perspective to locate door on the right side of the ship. 

The thing with the FS is that Creber wanted the wings to slope downward so as to mimic the Seaview's forward dive planes. In addition, he thought a more pronounced thrust of the lower prow would provide more stability when the FS was floating on (or under sail upon) the surface.

As for the question of vtol capabilities, I know the image you're referencing, and it's a good question. Next time I see BC I'll ask him if he can recall what he was thinking in that regard. My hunch is that the inclusion of a tailhook in the blueprints tells us all we need to know about the FS's intended hovering capabilities. As in, there probably weren't any.


----------



## Seaview (Feb 18, 2004)

Carson Dyle said:


> As for the question of vtol capabilities, I know the image you're referencing, and it's a good question. Next time I see BC I'll ask him if he can recall what he was thinking in that regard. My hunch is that the inclusion of a tailhook in the blueprints tells us all we need to know about the FS's intended hovering capabilities. As in, there probably weren't any.


 
I've always thought that the FS-1 floating above an item to be salvaged from the seafloor and hooking on to it (like a Diving Bell after the rope snapped again) was probably more in line of what they were thinking than "hovering" capabilities, what with the tailhook and those vents inside the docking ring edges.


----------



## X15-A2 (Jan 21, 2004)

I'm not sure which material you are referring to that you think the FS cabin walls are made of but I can assure you that they were nothing more than formed sheet metal with the same diamond cross-cut texture as that found on the little panel on the top front of the Star Trek TOS hand phaser. No clear coat, no metal flakes. I climbed on the set when it was disassembled in outdoor storage and got quite a good look at it.


----------



## Seaview (Feb 18, 2004)

Sounds like standard aluminum siding.


----------

