Skydiver

2001: A Space Odyssey
20000 Leagues Under the Sea
Alien
Blakes 7
Captain Scarlet
Dr Who
Fireball XL5
Flash Gordon
Forbidden Planet
Hitch Hikers Guide
Into Infinity
Outland
Space 1999
Star Trek
Stingray
Terrahawks
Thunderbirds
War of the World’s
Tripods
UFO

Many moons ago (1971 actually!) I was the proud, even privileged, owner of an original model from the 1969-70 TV series UFO. A visit with my friend to the studios, with the aim of getting a job there, met with dissapointment and shock! The once proud studios that had housed (and blown up!) all those favorite models I had grown up watching in awe on TV now stood derelict and empty. The studios had literally just closed down.

Now only hollow, echoeing, empty corridors and stages with dirty floors with piles of trash heaped in corners met our eyes. Was this really the place where once aircraft runways and wonderful landscapes had stood?.

An old “gaffer” prodded a broom, moving dirt from one place to another. He seemed to know nothing (nor care) and sent us on our way, and then, there, among the piles of rubbish I caught sight of a wingtip. I pulled on the wing and low and behold I held in my hand a badly damaged and broken model of SKY 1.

Which all leads me on to the fact that by pure chance 27 years later I was commissioned to build that self same craft! However this commission wasn’t for the smaller 12 inch version I’d once owned, he wanted one the same size as the large scale model they’d used , and the “Diver” section as well!

After some time on my part trying to talk him out of it: [“Do you realise just how big that original large model was? Where are you going to put it? etc] We agreed a price and I began work. I will not go into the problems I encountered getting enough reference material for the large model in order to begin work. Suffice it to say I found out through numerous photos in Japanese books, and my own collection, that the big and small models did not match each other.

Sky 1 in final paint ready for panel lines

Rubbing down base coats and primer on Sky 1

Sky 1 carved in jelutong wood, sections ready for assembly

The jets and rocket nozzels for Sky 1 turned in solid aluminium

The front of Skydiver fabricated in perspex with wooden side blocks make to fit the back of sky 1

the finished Sky 1 Model 2 ft long

Martin setting up a flying shot of Sky 1

Skydivers main constuction in wood, perspex and EMA plastic piping

The model master sprayed in grey primer and rubbed down ready for taking a mold from

The 2-part mould of Skydiver’s body and conning tower

The final model now in fiberglass and ready for detailing

Conning tower carved in wood

Conning tower moulded in fiberglass with windows and intakes cut out

Skydiver’s engines cast from wooden moulds, now in fiberglass with fins carved from limewood fixed on with isopon car filler

All of the kit parts used on the small model had to be fabricated double sized for my 6 foot model

The whole of the “Diver” in final Oyster Gold metalic paint ready for panel lining and weathering

“Diver” nears completion as Martin paints in black and silver sections on the hull

Martin setting up a shot of Sky 1 detaching from “Diver”(see photo 23)

Martin setting up an underwater shot

Final shot with the backgroup painted in on the actual photo. This was not done by computer, it was hand painted

The cmpleted shot of Sky 1 leaving “Diver”

UFO actress Dolorez (Nina Barry) posses with Martin’s Skydiver at a UFO convention

Email Martin at: martin@martinbowersmodelworld.co.uk