This is Yoyodyne's Trimotor, No. 23. I haven't spent a lot of time coming up with a backstory for it, just the bare minimum needed for the design. I have no idea who the pilot is, how many races he has won, or what his wife thinks of his hobbies. I imagined a race that would take place perhaps 70 or 80 years from now, starting at a space elevator anchor station in geosynchronous orbit. The race would run to the habitats at L5, around the Moon, to L4, and back to the elevator station. Orbits around the Earth to save fuel and change delta-V would be allowed, but not required.

The racers would make maximum use of "indigenous" materials, produced in microgravity. The cockpit and engine housings are made of cast foamed aluminum, coated in diamondoid. The engines are nuclear thermal rockets, using ionized mercury for reaction mass. All three engines are identical, and can be swapped out at any "pit stop", in a matter of a couple hours. The engine armature allows the engines a limited freedom of movement, directing the thrust somewhat, for added maneuverability. The three arms thrusting out from the center of gravity are RCS clusters.

About the model

This model is in 1:48 scale. It measures 8 3/8" long, from the tip of the antenna to the rear of the exhaust bells, and is about 4 1/2" in diameter. It is made up of fishing floats, ping pong balls, a shampoo bottle cap, lots of sheet styrene and aluminum tubing, and bits of solder. The antennas are .020 steel wire, and the grab handles around the airlock are staples, painted black. The engine housings are made of old cigar tubes which I've had lying around for ever. I wrapped them in textured styrene sheet and pinstriping tape, and detailed them with solder and aluminum tube. The exhaust bells are fishing floats, cut in half and glued to some interesting looking beads.

The engine armature is made of sheet styrene and a piece of 3/8" dia. aluminum tube, which runs all the way through the model. The engine actuators are made to look like they can bring the engines together, parallel to each other, or flare them out, as seen here.

The only kit piece I used in this model is the pilot, which I lifted from an old F-16 kit. The cockpit housing is mostly a pair of fishing floats, with little bits of styrene here and there. The airlock is two layers of .010 styrene, vacuformed over the cockpit ball and cut to shape. The cockpit interior is completely scratchbuilt, but is not easily visible in these pictures. I lit the cockpit up, with an orange interior LED, a pair of blinking running lights, red on top and green on bottom, and a pair of MagLite bulbs for headlights. (I had a devil of a time getting a picture of the blinking running lights as they were both lit up).

I had originally intended to display this model at a pit stop, parked next to some sort of space station. The electrical wiring was to be disguised as a refueling line, so I snaked the wires out the back of the cockpit and through the side of the service housing, through a port. The model would be mounted to the display base by this fueling line. However, since dioramic were more or less verboten in this contest, I decided not to sweat it. I just built a simple display stand out of clear polycarbonate. I'll build the space station later.

The model is painted in Model Master enamels, with metallic green, chrome yellow, and insignia red. The metallic areas are Testors Buffable Metallizers: Aluminum plate, stainless steel, and gunmetal. I painted on many coats with a Badger 150 airbrush, and finished it with a few coats of Future floor wax. This really made the green shine, it is very reflective. The decals are from Starship Modeler, and the no. 23's are dry transfers.

Image: Left side

Image: Right side

Image: Top view

Image: Top/rear

Image: Lights on for safety