Tanker

Tim Mullins and I have been inspiring each other for years. His P-51X Space Fighter and my Vervair-Class Fighter both started as P-51 kits. But I really loved his BSG Contest entries, especially the SER Bishop. He used F-4 Phantom and F-101 Voodoo fuselage parts, so I showed him that no kit is too expensive to cannibalize - I used a BAC Lightning! After all, the best dishes start with the best ingredients, right?

If only.

The Lightning fuselage went on the bottom of a plasticard sheet, while an Ar 234 fuselage flanked a Space Shuttle tank on top. In front are parts of an AMT Amtronic that, perversly, looked better upside down from how I built it. The aft is a huge E100 tank turret above the only other Amtronic part I knew I wanted to use, one of the seat sections, inverted.

The cylinders flanking the ship were sized to fill the bomb bay of the Lightning, and were forced to hang down by the plasticard, thus irrevocably determining the vertical orientation of the ship. Were it not for that, the ship could have been inverted, and the now-chin-stuff could have maked the nose as the command module of the ship. The design of the rest of the ship would have supported that.

Throwing the engines in back didn't legitamize the top - They would have worked on top or underneath I needed... A conning tower in back! Suddenly the ship vaguely esembles a oil tanker and it has purpose, scale, and orientation, all thanks to the trigger of a candle-lighter.

As never happens in real life, this innocent tanker became a Pirate Mothership with the inclusion of four turrets.