by Phillip Thomson

I'm sure we all do this at some time: find an object and look at in a totally new way from what “normal” people do. We pick up a saltshaker, a toy, a lamp or a multitude of other interesting objects and think to ourselves this could make a cool engine, cockpit, spaceship body, etc.

That's how this Starfighter came about a few years ago. Easter came and Ferro Rocher chocolates came out with their obligatory Easter container, mostly ovoid in shape, with a clear top half. I've always looked at these and saw a spacecraft, but exactly what never came to mind.

One day my father gave my daughter a tornado lamp - very retro. Eventually it died, I did attempt to make repairs but couldn't get it to go. I was on the verge of throwing it out - but its interesting shape and style caught my attention. I put 2 and 2 together and mated the egg and the lamp together to form this Retro Starfighter. Putting the two parts together (the base of the Tornado lamp and the egg I could see a cross between a Thunderbirds vehicle and Flash Gordon fighter).

The ship is a two-man fighter, one pilot and one gunner. The cockpit was thrown together from various bits from my spares box. The dash was from an old Cessna plane, the seats from a VW beetle. The cockpit floor was made from a CD case which I scribed the floor to look like it was timber. Other bits in the cockpit included a part of an AT-AT and landing gear from an X-Wing. The yellow fuel tanks are glass marbles. The fuel lines are old guitar strings and the engine is a honey bottle nozzle. The weapons are some old laboratory equipment, special swabs - like I said you pick something up and wonder what you can make of it. From a pile of stuff most people would see as junk and throw out I created the retro Starfighter. It's unnamed - I have trouble creating and building models let alone making names for them.

Image: Cockpit

Image: Front view

Image: Top