If only.

June 22, 2010 7:18 AM

Sci-Fi Airshow - Take the guided tour.

The Sci-Fi Air Show’s purpose is to preserve and promote the rich and varied history of Sci-Fi/fantasy vehicles. Through display and education we seek to celebrate the classic design and beauty of these ships and the rich imaginations that created them. When the cameras stopped rolling, many of these proud old ships were lost and forgotten. Please join us in working to keep these rare and beautiful birds soaring! About the artist.

posted by BeerFilter (14 comments total)

This is what I call a Good Thing. Maybe it is because I live close to a warplane museum and have had my windows rattled by an Avro Lancaster bomber a half dozen times in the last week, but I like this a lot.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:46 AM on June 22, 2010

I strongly suspect I am being misled!
posted by Naberius at 7:56 AM on June 22, 2010 [2 favorites]

Though this would be a much better world if I were not...
posted by Naberius at 8:08 AM on June 22, 2010 [2 favorites]

It was great to see - particularly for the accident photo. My heart sank when I saw the (still-active) Orion craft flying under United's banner. What the site's too polite to tell you is that the flights are all coach now, the "restroom" has been replaced by a US $2,700 plastic bag, and peanuts are the only food.
posted by Smart Dalek at 8:22 AM on June 22, 2010

Not peanuts. Pretzels. I literally can't remember the last time I saw nut products on an airplane.
posted by Naberius at 8:45 AM on June 22, 2010

This touches two of my deepest nerd nerves. Awesome.

I was amused by the non-show attributed "shuttle craft" in the second image in the slideshow. Shh, nobody let on. I suspect there are other eastereggs in the background of the wide shots.
posted by mwhybark at 8:59 AM on June 22, 2010

Also, darn tragedy about the Buckinghamshire crash.
posted by mwhybark at 9:00 AM on June 22, 2010

I suspect there are other eastereggs in the background of the wide shots.

You mean like the SHADO Interceptor from Gerry Anderson's UFO in the eighth picture (the first one of the Flying Sub)?
posted by KingEdRa at 10:27 AM on June 22, 2010

I am immediately struck by a desire to go to this so deep that I turn almost inside out with want.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 11:01 AM on June 22, 2010

I'll be there all week.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:28 PM on June 22, 2010

Excellent, but needs more Terran Trade Authority.

Holy shit I would pay some cash money to walk around in an Eagle Transporter.
posted by everichon at 1:02 PM on June 22, 2010

Not peanuts. Pretzels. I literally can't remember the last time I saw nut products on an airplane.

I can. Yesterday. On Delta.
posted by kjs3 at 1:08 PM on June 22, 2010

Also, darn tragedy about the Buckinghamshire crash.

Hardly a tragedy. The barn was insured, the pilot walked away with a sore back and moderate whiplash and the Eagle was salvaged within days and back flying again within three months - although BAe Hatfield had to scrap the Command Module and fit a spare, leading to all sorts of arguments about whether the resulting bird is still 'original'. The damaged CM was cleaned up and used for filming for a while, then ended up at an amusement fair in Weston-super-Mare for years before being bought by a collector and restored. It's now on display at East Fortune; you may have seen the picture of our very on cstross leaning on it on the back of one of his recent books.

East Fortune also has the only operating Sky fighter from the SkyDiver combo seen in UFO. (Yes, they repainted the fin number between episodes - mind you, the Russkies did this in real life, to make out they had rather more Bears than they did.) In a typical inter-museum spat though, the Diver is at the Submarine Museum at Gosport, so the two halves of a legendary vehicle are about 300 miles apart. Meanwhile the 'Fireball XL5 to the Skies' campaign claims to have raised most of the money to get XL5 back into flying condition, but for now she's at Bruntingthorpe alongside Vulcan XH588.

Elsewhere in the UK you can see the SPECTRE capsule-kidnapping rocket at the Leicester Space Centre. (Of course, the hollowed-out volcano launch base is still in situ, but as everyone knows Elon Musk bought it and is restoring it to operating condition.) And Duxford is home to the X-Wing / Tie Fighter Display Pair, which is second only to the Red Arrows in terms of requests to appear at UK air shows.

[OK, back to reality now... I love the idea behind this and this is just a little flight of fancy of what we might have over here if this were real. Considering how much was filmed at Pinewood, there would probably be quite a lot. And I would die to see a genuine Eagle Transporter.]
posted by Major Clanger at 3:41 PM on June 22, 2010 [2 favorites]

These shots are pretty well-produced, but some of the writing left my suspension of disbelief demolished -- "The Eagle One on the Moon during its' first test flight?" It's my understanding that on the first test flight, a new platform isn't likely to do much more than fly a pattern and land, validating that the thing does, in fact, fly. While I can understand wanting to write something that makes it seem like in this universe, lunar travel is commonplace, I still can't see pushing to the full designed service limits of a vehicle on the first flight. Then again, I'm a rated pilot and I've been involved with aerospace either as a hobby or a vocation for my entire life, so maybe it wouldn't shake suspension-of-disbelief for outsiders.

Still, tons of fun to look at/read.
posted by Alterscape at 9:42 AM on June 23, 2010