I was looking through the amazing photo gallery of the National Air & Space Museum of the TOS Enterprise studio model and they're gorgeous, but some of the shots threw me off.
It's the nacelles. They went through all that restoration work and trouble but left the nacelles off kilter. Call it sag, droop, or what-have-you, but the nacelle bottoms are left with the bottom surface of the nacelle roughly level with the saucer, and based on early model shots that's not how she was designed or built.
In fairness, they were aiming to make her look as she did in 1967, by which time some sag had developed (especially on the port nacelle, some note). And, unless I'm mistaken, the studio model nacelle striping had been made to 'downwrap' as it went forward in later iterations, staying level even as the sag occurred . . . but that's a losable feature to fix the basic problem.
If you're gonna fix the port nacelle, why leave the sag at all? It's a bit sad.
posted
That model is over 50 years old. It was never in perfect alignment during that entire time. I suspect that part of the "sag" is actually due to a minor error in construction (doesn't take much to skew it noticeably).
They've done such a great job restoring it, I'm not bothered by a little bit of sag in the ol' girl.
Registered: Feb 2003
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