ALL SCI-FI

[Maurice]

As to the saucer design: All art is not just about what it is but when it was made.

Maybe discussed above, but The Invaders ship is clearly based on the Venusian "scout ship" popularized by the George Adamski hoax photos detailed here.


Photo also here.

The top of it was almost certainly the top of a Sears gasoline lantern as seen on page 11 of this document, possibly grafted onto parts of a chicken brooder lamp.

As well-known as that photo was at the time it almost certainly chosen as the basis for the show's craft because it would fit public conception of what such a vehicle ought to look like and "smell right".

[Bud Brewster]

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Great post, Maurice!

Yep, that silly contraption that was coobled together for the fake photo is definitely the "inspiration" (and I used the term loosely) for The Invaders saucer.







However, I must admit that I greatly admire the clever "landing gear" assembly which folds down from saucer's underside. And it looks great on my modified version, too!



A larger version of the saucer than the one I proposed could have a landing gear assembly that's smaller in relation to the saucer (as shown below), which still allowed room for crewmen to walk around beneath the ship, the way the crewmen of the C-57-D did.





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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[mach7]

I actually prefer the original TV version. It's clean and simple.

As Maurice points out it was heavily based on the Adamski hoax saucer.

The landing gear works 2 ways. It supports the ship on the ground but it also provides a degree of thermal protection on the underside of the ship while retracted.

The heavy landing gear could act like a heat shield in an none normal re-entry. Say a partial power or unpowered re-entry.
It also could act as a sort of blast shield in battle, protecting the exposed drive sections of the saucer.

Here is my build of the old Aurora kit along with some of my prop replicas I've built over the years.