The Eagle Transporter was the hero ship seen in the 1970s British television series Space: 1999, and remains a strong iconic vessel for the Sci-Fi genre till today. The Eagles served as the primary spacecraft of Moonbase Alpha, which has a fleet of them, and are often used to explore alien planets, defend the Moonbase from attack, and to transport supplies and other items to and from the Moon. The Eagle was designed by Brian Johnson who had worked with Gerry Anderson on Thunderbirds in the mid-60s, which influenced the spaceship designs of Star Wars and other science fiction films in the later years.
These Eagles must have been constructed by the engineering and technical section of Moonbase Alpha using materials and components either shipped from Earth or manufactured on the Moon itself. It is the only viable explanation for the seemingly endless supply of Eagles despite seeing them frequently crashing or exploding.
Completely modular, the craft are divided into three basic sections: the command module, the passenger module/service pod, and the superstructure (containing the landing gear, access corridor/galley, aft compartment, fuel tanks and main propulsion system). The command module also has an escape hatch as revealed in the episode "Devil's Planet", although it is unknown whether this is an original design feature or an adaptation that was designed by Moonbase Alpha. The command module of the Eagle can detach from the main body as seen in the episode "Dragon's Domain" enabling it to dock with another compatible craft or for use as an emergency escape capsule. All Eagles are equipped with artificial gravity.
The model of the Eagle used in filming was built in four scales: by the end of the series, there were three 44-inch (110 cm) Eagle models, two 22-inch (56 cm) Eagles, one 11-inch (28 cm) Eagle, and a 5-inch (13 cm) Eagle. The superstructure framework was composed of copper tubing on the larger-scale models and the command module was vacuum-formed plastic. Compressed Freon streams were used to portray the vertical jets used in lift-off and landing sequences and, in Year Two, the exhaust from the main rockets. The special effects team worked in Bray Studios, a separate studio away from where the live action filming took place
Model Kits
Since 1979 when Airfix first released the Eagle Transporter kit until the re-issue today by Round 2 MPC, all the parts have virtually remained the same with the only difference being the kind of plastic used, and a more comperhensive decal sheet with the latest re-issue. Only the packaging style underwent massive changes thus until today, a lot of work is required to get this kit to look like it's studio model. This entails a lot of drilling, cutting and part replacements. But who is complaining? I for one am really glad Round 2 decided to re-issue her. This was basically my very first Sci-fi kit, build by my father and uncle (they even put the moonbase decal upside down) and survived up to three years.
I'm not going to go into any details on how you should detail your eagle transporter in this post (saving that one for later) but I am going to share with you on where you can get some of the aftermarket parts for her. While a few would opt to scratch build their own details, for the rest of us who are not good at scratch building, I hope these would provide some relief. Do take note that all of these are for the 12" 1/72 scale kit only
More after the jump.
