John Goode’s SHADO Control Mobile part 1

From 2005 – this was the first part of an unfinished project….

John Goode’s SHADO Control Mobile
part 1 by John Goode

“Tell Paul Foster to send in the MOBILES.” Barks Commander Straker.

This is often heard dialog from Gerry Anderson’s UFO Sci-Fi series from the 1960’s, which if you’re not already aware of you might want to check out http://ufoseries.com/

Ground breaking miniature FX pioneer Derek Meddings (who went on to do the bulk of the 007 James Bond until his untimely death in ’95) also produced all the FX for Gerry Anderson’s other “puppet” series, including but not limited to Thunderbirds, Supercar, Captain Scarlet to name just a few. UFO was a live actor show, and the best of Anderson’s Lot by many accounts. Meddings Ingenious use of miniature sets, lighting & pyrotechnics was far ahead of it’s time, employing a technical expertise that set the standards for all others to come—including 2001 A Space Odyssey and Star Wars.

Working with Meddings was a young and very gifted designer Mike Trim, who’s vehicle designs gave Anderson’s shows the hardware that we all drool over, One of the most famous, (and most inaccurately reproduced) vehicles is the SHADO MOBILE. Scripted as a medium sized tracked vehicle that was sent out in squads of four into action across any terrain in pursuit of downed alien craft or other situations related. One Mobile was a control center from where the mission operation was directed.

This vehicle while identical in every way to the three that were dispatched with the difference being a large, complex rotating radar dish employing SHADO’s proprietary “Utronics” system. We’ll just call it a radar dish, for simplicity. Upon this were all manner of industrial/mechanical shapes, that for the studio miniature were various kit-bashed parts. Meddings team were among the very first if not the pioneers of the technique of buying store bought model kits and using the parts for what ever was called for, thus saving time & production cost.

For the purpose of this article, I have over the last five years, performed an exhaustive forensic analysis of this studio miniature and identified, catalogued & obtained ALL the original kits that were used from 1960’s. Not any small feat as most of these kits have been out of production for many years — especially tough in the finance department as a small fortune was spent! The results are a 100% accurate duplication of the original studio miniature. I can state in full confidence that there hasn’t been any studio duplicate of this subject, with this degree of accuracy ever produced to date. I must give credit to my dear colleague Mr. Keith Scaife who really has taken the art of “kit-Spotting” to incredible levels. With out his expertise in regard to the many hundreds of model kits produced past & present, many things we see in Star Wars, 2001 and the Anderson Series’ would remain a complete mystery.

And don’t worry, another series detailing the complete and 100% accurate studio scale reproduction of the entire SHADO MOBILE vehicle, employing ALL the original kit-bashed parts will be a future installment unto itself & produced by David Merriman, as it relates directly to this radar dish.

A complete list of all of the original parts have finally been inventoried and accounted for, ready for assembly. The original studio miniature was 20″ long, and when “dirtied-down” with soot and mud, appeared life size. We’ll achieve the same results.

For our Radar Dish, you may encounter insurmountable difficulties in collecting all the original kits from which to bash the parts. However, it is hoped you can glean enough information from the photos to construct your own duplicates from standard materials such as sheet styrene and simple acrylic stock. In the near future, complete actual size blueprints will be available to assist you. To get perfect results in all the various shapes, I will defer to Mr. David Merriman who’s various treatise on part fabrication demonstrates the #1, 100% correct methods in achieving finely finished detailed pieces though the mediums of spin-casting, or resin molding. For those of you who want to learn the nitty gritty of down & dirty professional modeling, read his articles on this site! He is spilling vast quantities of how-to’s, for absolutely free. Read & learn folks! The goal of this project however is to duplicate exactly, the original studio miniature in sort of a “re-enactment” using the same materials, parts & methods as was executed in the FX department at Derek Meddings model shop in 1968. For surface detail, simple or little in the way of scratch fabrication was done for these particular miniatures. Meddings team were under critical deadlines and budgets to produce finished, working miniatures on time, that looked good on film. (all of these parts & bits CAN be fabricated from scratch using known methods however, and when ever possible the true model maker should fabricate his subjects from scratch). A word on “kit-bashing”: I am not personally an advocate of simply gluing existing model kit parts together at random to achieve some kind of “sculpture” that you can call a space vehicle. The FX team under Meddings direction used model kit parts for surface detail applied OVER the vehicle hulls that were fabricated by hand from wood, acrylic & fiberglass.

Lets begin.

These close-ups on film really help, as the unit rotates completely around revealing all views. It is these frame by frame captures from which the bulk of the analysis was performed. The episode is “Computer Affair.”

To save time and obtain a rigid & symmetrical “dish”, a little geometry was employed with some good old fashioned hardware store sleuthing: First that the dish is a curved ellipse partial from a six inch diameter sphere. Second, the best source for this is an industrial tank float made by “Roberts”. It is glass filled nylon, six inches in diameter and perfectly smooth. The finished dish measures out at 5 ½ wide by 2 ¾ high. Bisect the float ball using a hack saw, or for you more sophisticated chums, a dremmel tool.

If you screw up, you’ve got about three dishes you can cut per ball. Cover the hemisphere with masking tape and mark a center line and marks indicating the dimensions listed above. You can cut the dish with a dremmel but it’s very messy. I used both a dremmel tool and on another used some good sharp tin-snips. You’ll have to do some light sanding of the edges either way. Interestingly enough, Many Anderson series puppets are wearing flight helmets made from toilet-tank floats.

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