It's not a representation of a particular version of the Enterprise, but an "artist's impression" of the yet unappeared Enterprise Z (Z from Zeppelin) .
Check out the video to see how it moves around:
I made it for the occasion of the BVC participation at the 20th F.A.C.T.S. convention in Ghent, October 23-24, 2010. The BVC or Belgian Voyage Club is the Belgian Star Trek fan club (www.bvc.be). And it's flying again at the 21st F.A.C.T.S. convention in Ghent, October 22-23, 2011.
In this Ible I explain how I made the construction. I also explain the main principles of the build of a vectored thrust propulsion (propellers moving in the direction you want thrust) and tail motor steering. The exact solution is however depending on what RC-components you have available.
Thanks for the votes in the Autodesk Kinetic Sculpture Design Contest!
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It is quite possible to make blimp envelopes yourself, but I never reached the helium tightness of industrially made balloons. Also the “valve” used by commercial balloons is hard to match in ease of use and tightness. Therefore I based my project on ready made balloons:
Two Zeppelin NT foil balloons, available at the webshop from the Deutsche Zeppelin Reederei.
A 52” blimp envelope, as common for toy RC Blimps. I actually used a 52” x 37” version with extra load bearing capacity. This allowed to add more trimming weight and removing it to compensate for helium loss over time.
A 36 or 38” round foil balloon (as sold for toy RC “flying saucer” blimps or large decorative balloons).
About 2 to 3 m2 of balloon foil (I used a type with one side in white, matching the main hull, but a silver coloured Enterprise Z would look great too).
The last to items could be replaced by an "Amazing Indoor Anti-Gravity Flying Disc", if you can find one.
Similar flying discs are available, but these are smaller and come in colourfull prints not suited for this project.
99%+ pure helium for maximum buoyancy. For small quantities I find it cheapest and easiest to have my balloons filled at the local balloon shop. Balloon Surprise in Drongen gives excellent service.
Construction material:
Some extruded polystyrene sheet (mostly known under the brand name “Depron”, about 0.5 m2 of 5-6 mm thickness and 0.5 m2 of 3 mm thickness.
about 3.5 m of 2 mm diameter glassfiber composite rod (as available from kite shops) or, even probably better probably about 1.5mm carbon composite rod.
Polystyrene contact glue. The clear type is preferred, but as I didn't have that available some camouflaging was done at the end with white acrylic paint.
Some superglue
Clear cellotape, wide and standard
Thin double sided tape (the carpet fixing type).
A printer and paper (as light as your printer accepts is best, but I used ordinary office paper)
About 50g of plasticine as trimming weight (no play dough, as this tends to dry out and lose weight)
Propulsion and control:
The propulsion and RC components should be under 40g. I used an 8g parkflyer receiver, three 6g micro servos, an extra motor from such a servo, a 10g LiPo battery and three 6.5 diameter indoor airplane propellers. To that I added , two small gears with a 1 to 3 ratio (4 is even better), some 2mm diameter carbon rod (a piece of 20 cm and one of 40 cm), an a extra small micro switc and about 2.5 m of the thinnest isolated electric wire I could find.
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also check out my flying man rcsuperhero see him on youtube
Im a big star track fan!
And actually, as it happens, the Enterprise Z has a smaller saucer section than the other Enterprises as it was designed for fluidic space ;-)
And your rcsuperhero is great!
Actually, real mylar (polyester foil) can not be heat sealed. Although foil balloons are often referred to as "mylar", they are actually made of a nylon foil. This nylon foil can indeed be heat sealed. I have made blimp envelopes by heat sealing nylon foils. But where the helium loss with good industrially made balloons is in the order of magnitude of 10% a week, with the envelopes I heat sealed myself it's rather 10% a day. If you have a bottle of helium at hand, it is feasable to fly with such envelopes.
Another suspect is the valve, but even when I kept the original valve, large homemade seams did increase the loss.
However, self made balloons are still good to fly. You just need some more trimming. About each hour or so. As you need to change or charge batteries, you need a "pit stop" anyway. And you will need a small refill about each day to keep the shape or if you run out of trimming weight to remove. Other blimps I designed with a about 40% of buoyancy to spare. Adding air to keep the shape and having trimming weight to spare, I could fly the self made balloon up to a week.
And there are probably people around are better in heat sealing.
and it flys verry high (beware for the hights)
looks like the real thing :)