Projects underway for NASM transformation project in Washington, DC

[davegee]

Been working on many issues, like getting set up on designing a hanging mechanism for this very large and heavy (135 lbs) model. It will be hanging over the heads of probably millions of museum goers over time, so ensuring an extremely reliable system was of the highest order. We got that approved recently, won't drill the hole for the eyebolt until the entire model is together to see where the exact CG is to place the hole. The eyebolt is a Crosby forged piece, in-line hanging strength of 1200 pounds, which is overkill, but I didn't want to leave anything to chance with this model.

We have completely sanded, patched, and smoothed any imperfections in this 40 year old model. We found many, including some delamination of the fiberglass at the seams in a few spots. Everything went into primer, and then sanded and checked for any small imperfections still needing a bit more work. On Monday, (this is Saturday) we will start spraying the entire model white, and after that work on all the black patterns of the model. Callie made up the graphics for me, although we are thinking we might use some of those vinyl transfers as patterns and paint all the black patterns on. Things like the USA flag, Discovery name, etc., we'll use Callie's transfers when we come to that point.

I am working on a 1/15 scale model of the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) that was released into space from this STS-26 mission of Discovery in October 1988. This was the "Return to Flight" mission, the first shuttle flown after the Challenger accident over 2 1/2 years previous. It had a simple job to do on this first flight, covering 4 days: Make sure everything operates normally and safely, and release the TDRS satellite into orbit. It had a booster on it that carried the satellite up to a geosynchronous orbit around the Earth at 22,500 miles high.

I'm very much looking forward to getting this last project completed that I am doing for the NASM. It's been a very busy year!

I'll attach a pic of the fuselage taken last week in primer, and a photo of the real TDRS launched on that mission. My version will be about 29 inches long in that scale.

Davegee

Today we started painting the shuttle model. We're starting with a coat of white over all the parts, and then will mask off the parts that will be sprayed black, and some grey, namely the wing leading edges and the nosecone. I'll post more pics soon. I'm hoping we can wind this project up in the next several weeks and get it shipped to Washington, DC. It will remain in strorage in its crate until sometime next year when they are ready to install it in the new gallery.

I'll attach a pic at the auto body sho p today where we have been doing most of the work on the model since we got it last May. It is 8 feet long, wingspan of 4 feet, and weighs about 135 pounds. Been quite a project! Looking forward to getting it painted and completed, for sure!

[jetfool]

Davegee,
Thanks for posting your updates, Shuttle looks good from your start to now. Going to be a real asset to the National Museum. Your last photo looks like you could throw it off one of your mountains and dead stick on your landing field, just so NASM would have proof that it flys. LOL Go ahead I know you want to!
Keep posting your work and pictures

Best Regards, Rex

[davegee]

Don’t think that a time or twoI Did want to throw it off a mountain! But I think we are getting closer to the home stretch with this project!

davegee

[davegee]

Been making some progress on the 1/15 scale TDRS satellite and its booster, called an IUS, or Inertial Upper Stage. I am hoping to wind this project up completely by the end of the year, if at all possible. Painting continues on the shuttle, and I look forward to dropping over to the shop to see how it is looking now. Several areas should be painted black now, and then the final detail black areas around the nose will have to be masked off and painted. A seamstress here in Cody who normally sews wedding dresses consented to being contracted to make scale looking thermal blankets for the entire cargo bay. Those will be one of the last things to add to the model before we finish it.

Regarding the TDRS/IUS,that's coming along. In the previous post, I put up a photo taken of TDRS/IUS just after it was released into orbit by Discovery in 1998. They let it drift off about 100 miles or so from the shuttle, and then ground controllers ignited the two-stage solid rocket motors that propelled it up to a geosynchronous orbit 22,000 miles above the Earth.

I'll attach several pics from earlier today. The top half of the model where the solar panels and antennas sticking out the top is still being designed and built by colleagues in Denver and Phoenix. When all is done, we'll need to test out how it sits in the shuttle in aluminum brackets one of the guys at the shop designed and fabricated. The curators at the NASM want the model to be angled up 30 degrees from the lie-flat position it was in for liftoff until orbit. This was the "checkout" position where they tested all the TDRS systems. Then they further raised it up on its turntable mount to 58 degrees, and released it into space with the assistance of some springs.

There was almost no information to go from for making this model. Mostly pictures from space, and one small design drawing I found online from several years ago. In this scale, once the TDRS is mounted on top of the silver transition section in the photos, it will be just over 29 inches long, but will only weigh about 4 pounds or so. I've been trying to keep the weight as low as possible for this display. The shuttle will be upside down with the payload bay doors open, and the TDRS ready to be released into space for this display. I've done totally scratchbuilt projects since I was a kid, but this one has been a challenge. Still, I think it will come out looking good on display with shuttle.

[jetfool]

Davegee,

Amazing what you have created. Photo's and a minds- eye can do wonders. The ripple effect in the gold covering looks like the real covering on the satellite's in the AIR FORCE MUSEUMN. Keep up the good work. Happy Thanksgiving Rex

[davegee]

Davegee,

Amazing what you have created. Photo's and a minds- eye can do wonders. The ripple effect in the gold covering looks like the real covering on the satellite's in the AIR FORCE MUSEUMN. Keep up the good work. Happy Thanksgiving Rex

Thanks, Rex. Looking forward to getting the parts for this final part to complete the model. It's been a busy year, but I think I see a light at the end of the tunnel. And, hopefully it is not an oncoming train!!

Have a great Thanksgiving, too!

Cheers

Dave

[davegee]

Here's a few update photos of the shuttle project. It is getting closer to being completed, still many minor but important things to add like the thermal blankets that will line the interior of the cargo bay which is now blue. On one pic you can see the tilt table with the round hole in it near the rear of the cargo bay. The satellite has been removed to put the mounting mechanism in for the tilt table. The TDRS satellite and booster will be installed again after all the interior details are completed. The tilt table is positioned in a 30 degree up from the lie flat position it was in for launch into orbit. This is the position we will use for display. The shuttle will be upside down suspended from the ceiling about 12 feet above the gallery floor. The cargo bay doors will be locked fully open and the 29 inch long satellite will protrude out of the cargo bay at that 30 degree angle.

This was the "checkout" position where they tested all the connections and electronics before raising the tilt table to the 58 degree up position for release into orbit from shuttle. They used some springs to gently push the satellite away and it maneuvered away from the shuttle about 100 miles or so. At the right time, the two-stage solid propellant booster would push the TDRS up to an eventual geosynchronous orbit of about 22,000 miles above the Earth.

These satellites worked very well and they are still using newer and more advanced ones for communications enhancement for spacecraft zipping around the globe at 17,500 mph!

Here's a few shots taken in the past few days. I am hoping we will wind this project up in the next few weeks and ship it back to Washington, DC when we get final approval by the staff at the NASM to do so. I am still working on completing the TDRS satellite with some colleagues in Denver and Phoenix, as the decision from NASM as to which satellite they wanted in the shuttle for display came relatively late in the game.

[Elbee]

Beautiful work, Dave. Craftsman extraordinaire. Great workspace. Enviously, Steve

[davegee]

Beautiful work, Dave. Craftsman extraordinaire. Great workspace. Enviously, Steve

Thanks, Steve. That's about a $200k Alfa Romeo being lovingly restored in the background, so it is in good company! We're getting there in fits and spurts, hope to have it finished, approved by NASM, and shipped out by the end of the year. I know the owner of the auto body shop can't wait to see it go. It takes up as much floor space as a car!

Thanks for your nice comments, Steve.

Compliments of the Season! (from Peter Ustinov, 1955 movie We're No Angels, one of my wife's and my all time favs.)

[jetfool]

Ditto for what LB said, just beautiful work.
Merry X-MAS, Rex

[davegee]

Ditto for what LB said, just beautiful work.
Merry X-MAS, Rex

Thanks, Rex. This shuttle project redo is a collaborative work of several very skilled people in Cody, Denver, Phoenix, and other places too. Although I'm doing some direct work on some parts of it, I've engaged people like those in the body shop to do the expert fiberglass repair, prepping, and painting, etc. If it all pans out ok, I think I'll check with our local paper to see if they would like to do an article showcasing the immense talents of some of our people in this very small town of Cody, WY.

This has really been a lot of work this past year repurposing this huge 40 year old model for a job it was never designed to do: hang 12 feet above the museum floor with cargo doors carefully cut out and opened (without destroying it!), adding a cargo bay interior and a scratchbuilt spacecraft inside it that has almost NO design drawings or backup information available. We cobbled together enough through poring over the internet for what we could use to make the TDRS (Tracking and Data Relay Satellite) and IUS (Inertial Upper Stage) booster that goes with it. I, for one, will be very pleased and relieved when it moves out of here in its crate to Washington, DC! I might go out there next year to help install it in the museum, not sure yet.

Have a very Merry Christmas and New Year to you and your family, Rex!

Dave

[Elbee]

Compliments of the Season! (from Peter Ustinov, 1955 movie We're No Angels, one of my wife's and my all time favs.)

Just re-watched that film after about 50-years . It's on one of the streaming networks (?) don't recall which. Merry Christmas to you and yours, too. Steve

[jetfool]

Davegee.

You might contact your AMA rep or call the AMA Nat'l office. They should want to present it in the AMA magazine. I think it would be a very interesting article on How, Why, and Where a project starts and how a modeler is responsible for it all coming together. Something that will be displayed in our National Museum should be publicized.

Best Regards, Rex

[davegee]

Just re-watched that film after about 50-years . It's on one of the streaming networks (?) don't recall which. Merry Christmas to you and yours, too. Steve

Great! My wife and I watch that movie every 23rd of December. Been a regular staple of our Christmas movies we've been watching together for the 42+ years we've been married! I love little quotes in there like when they discover that horrid and despised Cousin Andre (Basil Rathbone) has suddenly died in his sleep in bed (actually bitten by little Adolph, the pet snake of Aldo Ray's). When discovered the next morning, Peter Ustinov's character says something like "We can't in all decency bury him before lunch!"

Best,

Dave

[davegee]

Davegee.

You might contact your AMA rep or call the AMA Nat'l office. They should want to present it in the AMA magazine. I think it would be a very interesting article on How, Why, and Where a project starts and how a modeler is responsible for it all coming together. Something that will be displayed in our National Museum should be publicized.

Best Regards, Rex

Thanks, Rex. I'll give it some thought.

Cheers

Dave

[jetfool]

Davegee,

Although it would take some work on your part to write an article I really think it would be to AMAs benefit to showcase modelers working on projects for all people to enjoy in the future. Often, we are accused of playing with toys that the uninformed person doesn't realize that models in museums have been made by craftsman who also enjoy flying models.

Congrats on 42+ years of marriage! I'm on our 41 yr together Best Regards, Rex

[davegee]

Hi Rex: when the dust settles and I finally get some breathing room from this very intense and long project, I’ll query the AMA magazine to see if there is any interest in a feature article on this unique project. Since it is not a flyable aircraft of some sort, they may take a pass on doing an article, which is fine. There might be other publications more suited to featuring this kind of story. We’ll see.

thanks

dave

[jetfool]

Davegee,

AMA would be crazy not to showcase this museum piece. You could also tell about your contest days and your models in other museums that you flew in competition.. Also include pics of your current models that you fly and replicate the planes of pilots that served. Preserving model aviation accomplishments is what the AMA is about in my opinion.

Best Regards, Rex

[davegee]

Thanks, Rex.

Dave

[davegee]

We're making steady progress on completing the shuttle. Still some work to do to finish it, but I'm hoping that we have it pretty much done this week. The TDRS satellite won't be complete yet, but we'll put the lower portion of it that is complete in place in its tilt table mounting stand. We have to have everything more or less finished before we take the final photos of it to send to the NASM for them to give us a yea/nay on permission to ship it to Washington. Obviously, after working on this thing since last May, we're hoping they give us a thumbs up to send it, and that part will be done, at least!

Once it is on its way, it will be placed in storage in Washington for close to a year before the new gallery is ready to install it in 2025 in its position hanging upside down from the ceiling with the shuttle bay doors open and showing the TDRS satellite as it would have looked shortly prior to releasing it into space. The TDRS satellite when it is completed in a month or so will be mounted inside the aft part of the cargo bay, pointed up 30 degrees from level. Total completed length of the satellite is about 29 inches, but we are keeping it as light as possible, about 3-4 pounds or so, completed.

The attached photos are all "in-progress" shots taken recently. Things are not totally in place yet like the scale looking thermal blankets that go in the cargo bay that were just placed there for a test fitting before we put them into place permanently. Will send more shots as we try getting wrapped up with this project!

Happy New Year, everybody! And Happy Birthday to my dad, who would have been 106 on this day, unfortunately, he only lived to 38.

Cheers

Davegee