Konami Eagle Pods – Passenger Pod

Konami, a Japanese company, has made an amazing collection of vehicles and figures from Gerry Anderson’s body of work. These are small models, about 4 inches or less, and gorgeously detailed.

I have had the Eagle with Rescue Pod from Space 1999 for some time now, seen here, mounted on a display base I created in my 3D printer some time ago:OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

This one came in a two-set box along with the SID satellite from the TV show UFO.

Last week I happened upon the rarer white version (no stripes on the pod). It hit me then that these are the only two Eagles Konami made, but there are others Eagles in the Moonbase Alpha fleet.

Well, first, the Eagle itself (the lifting body) is standard, but can be made to carry different pods. The red striped one is a Rescue Pod, the white one is a standard passenger mission pod. There are also a VIP pod (essentially the same pod with orange detail), a Laboratory Pod, which has extensions to either side and extra attitude jets, and a Freighter pod, used to carry nuclear waste around the moon.

So I set out to create extra pods for my Eagles. First up, a replica of the passenger pod.

I iterated through many variations of the model, tweaking it for fit and detail. At this size (4cm long) the tiny detail tends to get lost with my printer. But I made some adjustments to accentuate the details. It’s still not perfect, but here is the result, which isn’t bad, if I must say so myself.

Here, I assemble the “model kit” I created.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAHere are the various parts as they came off the printer. There is extra “rafting” material underneath all of the parts. Here you see the pod upper body, the pod bottom (printed separately to retain detail), four legs, four engine cones, and a bunch of window inlays.

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Here, the rafting material and support scaffolding (supporting the roof overhangs) are pulled away.

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Here you see all of the parts, cleaned up and separated from their rafting bases.

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Here, the four engine cones and four support legs are glued in place. The windows are all pieces designed to fit into deep holes in the pod’s upper part.

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And here the 12 windows are glued in place.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe assembled bottom, glued to the assembled top.

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And here it is docked with the Eagle. The white is not a match, but I intend on priming and painting later versions of these.

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Et voila! The Eagle, with my pod in place, next to the original white pod.

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