Building Skydiver from Gerry Andersons U F O

Gerry Anderson has made a lot of popular television shows and one of his best was 'UFO', made in 1969. This series was his first to use actors instead of puppets and told the story of Earth fighting off an invasion by aliens in the not too distant future of 1980. The effects, by Derek Meddings, were even more impressive than before and featured some excellent hardware designs by both Derek and Mike Trim.

One of my favourites was the Skydiver submarine that came with the detachable rocket powered aircraft Sky One. To film the SFX shots the studio used two complete Skydiver models (30 & 60 inch) and one further large scale (24") Sky One. To draw my blueprints I had profile photographs of the smaller 'Diver' model which is reasonably similar to the bigger version, just a little bit rounder with the only real big difference being in the shape of the two rear engines. The three Sky One's however have major differences and although most of my photos were of the big and small versions I tried to copy the medium sized model as I believe it has the better overall shape.

To construct the main Diver section I took my side profile blueprint and drew a series of horizontal lines across it, starting at the top deck and working down. With half inch spaces between each line there were ten lines in all. The next step was to cut ten sheets of half inch balsawood to the various lengths now indicated on the plan. Then from my top view blueprint, I obtained an outline of the upper deck which I then cut out of the top two layers of wood. The outline for the whole model was cut from the next five layers with the lower hull taking up the remaining three sheets.

Once this was completed all the layers were glued together to form the basic shape of the model which was then cut and sanded down to the required finish. The two engines and the conning tower were made separately with the later this time using vertically cut sheets. Finally the soft wood was coated in two layers of SP113 Epoxy resin and sanded to a smooth finish.

Seven plaster casts were now taken of the various parts, one for the conning tower, left and right sides for the hull and then top and bottom casts of the engines. Then the model parts were cast up in fibreglass, the parts superglued together, all the minor air holes and blemishes filled and then sanded smooth again.

However I wasn't actually happy with the finished shape.

So I made another set of plaster moulds of the hull and then produced a new casting from just a thick layer of P38 car filler. I then spent a good many hours reshaping the hull to get a better shape to it. The results were a definate improvement so I did the same for the conning tower and engines.

The edges were trimmed and then the hull halves glued together. More thin strips of fibreglass matting and a small amount of resin were added to the inside to strengthen the join.

Spray filler, car filler and knifing putty were used to get a perfect finish.

Now all the various recesses had to be marked in and then drilled out. The holes in the upper deck are filled with plasticard and kit parts whilst the rectangular side vents had metal mesh placed inside.

In this picture the row of recessed vents were first drilled out completely, then plastic strip is placed in the hole at the angle required and filler pushed against it from the inside. When the plastic is removed the vent should be the perfect shape.

All the fins for the model were created in solid P38 car filler. This was done quickly by squeezing the filler between two plastic sheets cut (slightly bigger) to the shape of the required fin. The two sheets pivoted from the trailing edge with plastic spacers placed between them to ensure the finished part was the correct thickness. All I had to do was sand down the leading edges.

The fins were superglued into position with a bit more filler to blend them in.

On this model I made a slight mistake, the side bulges at the front of the engine areas have grooves in the surface - its much easier to cast these parts separately and cut the grooves in than cut them into the finished model.

The trademark modelling technique on the UFO models was the use of tapes to create surface detailing. These should be Letraset Letraline tapes but they can be expensive and here I'm just using strips cut from A4 paper label sheets.

The big difference between the two Diver models is that the large one has just plain round propulsion tubes.

In this picture we can see we can see the P38 master, a fibreglass casting and then the almost finished conning tower.

The periscope was made from brass tubes, modified kit parts and plastic. It is only attached to the model with a small drop of superglue which allows it to drop off when 'knocked' instead of snapping and causing damage.

The Sky 1 model was made in a similar way the the Diver section. The fuselage was cast in two halves from fibreglass with P38 wings. The fluted front section was made separately as it is easier to cut in the grooves.

Many people build Sky 1 with a flat-sided fuselage but it is very round in places especially towards the front.

The pilots cabin was heat formed from thin plastic sheeting with a partial inner moulding from transparent plastic.

The side fairings and gun housings were cast in P38 mixed with resin, using a heatformed plastic piece as a mould.

The main rocket pods and engine tubes were cast using rubber moulds.

Fitting Sky 1 to the Diver is the trickiest part of the project.

The engine tubes were first glued to the diver section as was the fuselage of Sky 1- without the wings. Then the wings were fitted linking the parts together - but only glued to the fuselage. Then Sky 1 was removed and the wing joints strengthened and all the gaps filled. This was then refitted to check that nothing had moved, then the engine tubes could be cut off from the Diver, trimmed to the right length and attached to Sky 1.

The model was painted using Acrylic motor car spray paints, with the main colour being Ford Oyster Gold Metallic.

The model takes several weeks to paint due to the amount of different coloured panels requiring large quantities of masking tape.

A Large amount of weathering consisting of mostly ground up graphite pencil and black powder paint was used on this model to tone down the bright gold paint. This was applied using either a brush or just a finger against the edges of masking tapes, then sealed on with clear laquer. Then the process was repeated, building up the effect in layers until the required amount was achieved.

Coloured lines are Letraset Letraline Flex tapes. Luckily I still have a supply of white Letraset Lettering for the markings.

On this model I decided to fit small metal loops into the surface as attachment points for support wires. I've started doing this with a lot of models lately as it allows me to hang the model with ease.