[elfbait]

Hi y'all! While being out of town I managed to scrounge up some pics of a large Vehicle-Diorama I'm planning as I'm going back to GI Joe toys:

The C.A.A.G. Damocles
(Carrier, Airborne, Anti-Gravitic)

Background:
I have always dreamed of having a USS Flagg, but alas, that is not to be. So I decided to make my own. I wanted something that will house both vehicles (aircraft) and figures. While planning on such a monster vehicle, I had several ideas to choose from:
a. A conventional carrier or something similar to a large LCS (Littoral combat ship)
b. A stealth carrier ship
c. A submarine-carrier... It can stay undetected until it launches planes and missiles
d. A large aircraft having a flight deck. Borrowing from the Russian heavy ekranoplan, it sounds pretty inviting... but the wingspan may be too wide
e. A large land vehicle with a flightdeck, an idea taken from the latest Homeworld game... very tempting, but its mobility would be severely limited
f. A flying carrier, borrowing from the Avengers helicarrier idea.

I settled for the last option, but instead of using large fans, I settled for anti-gravitic drives to float the monster...

[elfbait]

The Damocles has a flight deck that is not typical for a usual carrier. Here are some of the schematics:

[elfbait]

A lot of inspiration for the final design of DAMOCLES was derived from Homeworld, the game. Because the carrier is floating in air, I can maximize usage of space in all faces of the vessel, even underneath. The vessel is designed to 'fly' in any direction, even sideways, like the Dark Aster.
The entire second level are hangar spaces, which would help me store all the airframes I had, plus some drones hanging on conveyors on the ceiling.
Below the Hangar Deck are C&C centers, living quarters, etc. Getting ideas from the LCS design, container van-type Mission Modules can be added at the rear half. Say, if I wanted to bring more troops, I could attach a Module that houses Joes and stows their equipment.

[TomO]

This looks epic.

[elfbait]

I used our garage floor, which is covered in 1'x1' (or 30cmx30cm) tiles, as a guide to outline a rough "model" of the DAMOCLES. I then placed a SkyStriker on the floor outline to see how it fits. Roughly it measures 8 feet long and 4 feet wide.
To make handling easier, I decided to create the carrier in two parts. The front part is the biggest, widest, and heaviest, since it contains the elevator assembly. The second part is what is behind the elevator, roughly 3 feet long.

[elfbait]

It seemed to me that the feasibility of building such a carrier hangs a lot on how well the ELEVATOR works. The elevator presented the greatest challenge in production. Under IDEAL circumstances, it should be motorized. Months of figuring it out led me to decide that it's best to settle on a mechanism that allows the elevator to be manually be brought from the hangar deck to the flight deck smoothly.

Since this is the biggest design challenge, I decided to start with the elevator mechanism. If this can't be done, I might as well abandon the project. I decided that the elevator assembly be made of sheet metal, for durability. Pieces of metal were cut, folded, and riveted together. After hours of fiddling around with adjustments, THE ELEVATOR ASSEMBLY WORKED!!!

Here's the elevator assembly carrying a SkyStriker. By the way, I tried it with a Tomahawk, and it fit just fine as well.

[Stl_Brgd_PFC_Ramar]

Intense! Looking forward to see how this progresses!

[Squashfest]

Dude! You're building a flying Flagg out of metal?! Document and post every little update.
Thank you sir,

[elfbait]

It did seemed that that the best way to go is metal, especially when size/area is a premium, and since the whole carrier will be placed on a small pedestal, simulating flight.

My choices for materials are as follows:
a. Marine Plywood: easy to work with, but is bulkier than metal, and less resilient in such humid and tropical climates as the Philippines (I intend to place it in our upstairs garden, somewhat exposed to the elements)
b. PVC sheets: Not as strong as plywood or metal, easy to work with, but to make it sturdy enough I had to use a lot of struts (taking up space) and will have to supplement with metal struts.
c. Sheet metal: weight and strength-wise, superior to the ones above. With rivets and careful planning, the main structure will be very strong. Plus, galvanized iron sheets (GI sheets) are VERY resistant to rust.

------

With the ELEVATOR problem solved, I proceeded with construction. For the HANGAR deck floor and the FLIGHT deck, I used 1mm thick sheet metal (In hindsight I could have actually used a 0.8mm or 0.6mm sheet). For the sides I used 0.6mm sheets.
You can use Duke as a gauge as to how big it is. This is the front half of the carrier. Observe the preliminary idea for a bridge. I rejected this because it was too small...

[Dusty Ayers]

This will be so ridiculously cool when it is done.