This came from my desire to use the large trans-smoke cockpit from the Jango Fett Slave I in a different way. I started with the middle part of the ship and worked my way out. The cockpit seemed tall enough to accomodate two command stations and then I tried having the cockpit be the lowest part of a local law enforcement vehicle. Officers assigned to these models jokingly refer to themselves as flying "The Birth Patrol!"
I wanted to have a street officer and a lieutenant. Then I added the video camera since most police cars have them. Not only can the officers record their arrests, but now TV stations can bring you up-to-the-second pursuit footage by getting the live feed straight from the camera. "Watcha gonna do when dey come fo' you?!"
It's a popular technique to use gears for engine, and I like that look so I wanted to try it. The large landing gear pad was retooled many times! As the ship is top-heavy and falls backward immediately, I had to come up with something stout that would also not add too much bulk.
The ship's tendency to fall backward is easy to see in this picture. The foot isn't terribly stable and does require some manual adjustment when it's deployed to make sure that everything is laying flat.
I wanted the foot to retract as flush as possible and minimize the bulk that it would add to the cockpit bulb.
This overhead shows the three large Ship ID numbers as well as the small ones on the front of the cockpit. I envisioned the large red & blue ones as being usefull for ship-to-ship visual confirmation since they can only be seen from above and behind whereas the small yellow ones would be how the officers identify their vehicle from the others parked in line.
I wanted some really heavy-duty looking engines, and the new propellor housings from the Life On Mars sets fit well inside to give the impression of a large intake manifold. Since the engines rotate (seen further down) I wasn't able to power the propellors to spin because the rotation mechanism took up all the interior space.
From the moment I started on the engine design I wanted them to be VTOL. I finally managed to make it work pretty reliably. In between both quads of engines is a crane weight to make them rotate faster.
In these two pictures I've removed the cables for a clearer view of the VTOL mechanism. The white beams and its connecting axle remain compressed when the engines are horizontal. Angle the ship forward, press inward on the black beams and the engines will rotate upward for landing. When the engines becomes vertical, the rear slots rotate forward and the axles connected to the white beams pops into these slots and hold the engines in place.
Angle the ship backward and press inward again on the white beams to bring the engines back to cruising position.
Below, the engine and locking mechanisms have been separated for a (hopefully!) clearer view.
Here's the rotation mechanism inside the engines. By themselves, the technic beams had substantial wobble and the engines kinda flopped around. I then added the "L" half-beams which braced themselves against the top plate inside.
Lastly we come to the lights! Gotta have lots o' lights to let the bad guys know that you're on their case! I was just able to fit a 9V battery box inside the middle of the ship and then add as many lights as I could.
The spotlight placement was pure serendipity as it illuminates the Classic Space logo perfectly! The beam from the spotlight is actually quite powerful and can throw a bright and sharp circle of "gotcha!" on any suspicious character!
"Attention, citizen! Disengange your hyperdrive immediately and pull over to the nearest M-class planet!"
They're a little fuzzy, but I think these last two pics do a decent job of showing the spotlight in action.
