Babylon 5 "Thunderbolt" Starfury: Our Last, Best Hope to get to Orbit

[Soda Popinski]

This is my first attempt at building a replica.  I chose the aerospace fighter from Babylon 5, the SA-26 (or SA-32A or maybe SA-23) Mitchell-Hundyne Starfury "Thunderbolt" from Babylon 5.  I was inspired by We Can Game if We Want To's Starfury build.

I'm not sure where they got the original source, but according to this fan RPG data, it can accelerate at 2G for 16 hours.  That's 565,000 m/s of delta-V.  I guess that's what 200 years of technological advance gets you.

I'm including 3 versions of the craft.  The first version flies better than the others in atmosphere, but doesn't look as much like the Thunderbolt.  The other 2 are identical, except the final version includes the rotating washer from Infernal Robotics.

Action Group 1 toggles the top engines on and off, which are useful for landing.  AC #2 switches RAPIERS to Closed Cycle mode and closes the intakes.  AC#3-5 toggle the sets of intakes.

Versions

Thunderbolt Version 1

Thunderbolt Version 2

Thunderbolt Infernal Robotics

Here's the build video with some "dog-fighting" with We Can Game if We Want To's Starfury.

 

Edited February 14, 2017 by Soda Popinski

[mrmcp1]

Glad to see another Babylon 5 fan here

Your attempt is much better than mine (it looks far more stable)

Would love to see some more Babylon 5 crafts 

[Soda Popinski]

1 hour ago, mrmcp1 said:

Glad to see another Babylon 5 fan here

Your attempt is much better than mine (it looks far more stable)

Would love to see some more Babylon 5 crafts 

Nice!  Great use of the spaceplane fuselage parts.  I'm still getting use to using clipping for my builds.  Turning those winglets to 45 degrees may help a bit with vertical stability, which is I'm guessing might be an issue.

[Jon144]

The Starfury and Thunderbolt were my all time favorite fictional space fighter designs. I tried making some but only got mediocre results. That was a great show. Really funny in some parts. 

[Soda Popinski]

There's not a lot of source material on the Thunderbolt on-line.  I lent my copy of the DVD set to a friend, so I couldn't go and re-watch them for those scenes.  I may give it another whack when I get a chance.  If I ever install BD Armoury, I'll have to put in that gattling gun.