Round 2 Klingon Bird of Prey WIP, Part 1

I am taking a little break from the Martian War Machine. I've been thinking about the new Klingon Bird of Prey I got a couple months ago--the new one with landing gear released last year by Round 2. I want to get some work done on this before my muse deserts me.

A vision came to me of the KBoP landed on a Klingon planet, maybe in the First City of Qo'noS. The place is pretty built up, so it would have to land on a raised landing pad. Otherwise, the blast from any reaction thrusters sends Klingons flying as they try to walk down the street. Here's a rough sketch I did in AutoCAD. It's just a plan view, but it shows the shape of the landing pad and its relative size to the BoP. It could be larger, but I thought it would be cool for the ship to overhang. Theoretically, a landing pad just slightly larger than the footprint of the landing gear is sufficient, but that seems silly. On the other hand, it seems like shuttles and smaller craft would use the same pad, and that no ships larger than the BoP would ever land. Hence a landing pad that seems a tad snug for the BoP. The shape is a truncated equilateral triangle, though I might add blast deflectors extending from the edges. There must also be supports (I was thinking three hexagonal columns in the corners) and all kinds of machinery, lifts, tankage, etc., since any maintenance, refuelling, and resupply must take place here. Now that I've got a sketch started in AutoCAD, I'll be fleshing out the drawing of the landing pad. Then scratchbuilding it out of styrene, and voilà, a diorama base!


I started construction with a test fit of the landing gear. They're pretty cool: aside from the big pads, they are constructed just like the legs of a bird of prey. I mean a real bird, like a hawk. I just used little dabs of superglue to attach metal to plastic, and dabs if model cement to install the landing gear bay in the lower hull, so I can pop it apart. The fit is loose enough that the KBoP could be posed landed on a pretty irregular surface. I definitely will take it apart because the partial interior exposed by the open landing gear doors and boarding ramp is screaming out for detailing.

Naturally, some people would like to rebuild this to have a working retraction mechanism. After handing the parts, I'm unsure how the retraction is supposed to work and the bays are much to small to accommodate the retracted gear. Maybe someone will come up with something, but I doubt it.

So here are some pics of the landing gear installation, less the two parts 57, a couple of Y-shaped struts. It's not quite clear to me how this part attaches to the metal landing gear leg. The last view in black and white is how it looks sitting on a flatbed scanner, which was useful for making the rough sketch in AutoCAD.

That's all till next time.