PML Special Projects

PML is sometimes involved with special projects, be they construction of rockets for use in films, such as Star Trek Generations, quotations for large numbers of rockets for research projects, or others. One of the recent projects PML has been involved in is that of creating nearly full-scale Harpoon missiles, Seawolf missiles, and "Russian enemy rockets" for a British Royal Navy documentary film. Details and photos/video are shown below on this page.

Also, we have some nice miscellaneous "good stuff" on the bottom of this page. Make sure to check back regularly as the bottom of this page will be the catch-all page for neat stuff that just doesn't fit anywhere else on the site.

One of the other projects PML worked on was creation of the Soren's Probe rocket in the Star Trek Generations film. Though we are not allowed by contract with the movie studio to provide ANY details for cloning of the rocket by rocketeers, or to sell a kit of the rocket, we do have three photos below for you.

Below are some photographs of the rockets involved in the Royal Navy project. Click here to see a PDF document of a July 2001 article about the project in the magazine Hobby Merchandiser.

Harpoons

The seven Harpoons PML built for the project were 11.4" diameter, about 14 feet long, weighed approximately 90 pounds loaded, and were constructed to fly on any combination of (1) central 75mm motor and (3) 38mm motors clustered around the central M. We recommended various motor combinations to the film production company to get the look and flight path they were trying to achieve, and ended up recommending a central M-1315W surrounded by (3) I-284's. Apparently we did well, as the Captain of the ship from which the Harpoons were launched said that he couldn't tell the difference between the PML models and the real thing on launch! One of the missiles was intentionally underpowered by the film crew (PML was not onsite during the launches, the film crew did all the firings themselves) to provide a different flight path/"style" than the others. This can be seen in one of the videos below. Of course safety of an underpowered flight wasn't an issue since they were done in the open ocean with no one else around. (By the way, all the fired Harpoons were recovered and disposed of so as not to pollute).

One of the Harpoons was constructed as a non-flying display model with RC-steerable fins (the tailcone is removed in the photo below to better see the mechanism). This model was used for close-ups in the documentary during in-flight sequences, and is now on display in the British Royal Navy museum in Britain.

The producers also needed some "bad guy" rockets, as well as some smaller interceptor rockets such as the Seawolf missile. We provided about 12 Seawolfs and 30 "enemy rockets" for the production. Some of the Seawolfs and enemy rockets were attached to/suspended by wires into each other to look like missiles intercepting each other in the heat of battle.

The Seawolfs were 4" diameter rockets using I-357s, and had custom urethane parts throughout for correct scale appearance. The Russian "enemy rockets" were essentially our Endeavour kits but without the payload section (they were easier to build and looked "enemy enough" for the producer's needs).

One of the most amazing parts of this entire project is that the entire set of 7 fully-glassed, custom-nosecone Harpoons, 30 enemy rockets and 12 Seawolfs (with those 42 rockets constructed in pre-QT days, meaning the phenolic spirals had to be filled!), were completed in only 27 days from winning the bid to putting the last crate on the delivery truck! Pretty amazing that we were able to do it all so quickly, and with such great results! It was a great project to be involved with. We have some photos and videos for you to see below

We have some photos that we took during this project below, as well as some screen captures and video clips from the eventual documentary film. Take a look!

(Click on the following photos of the Harpoon project to see a larger image or to watch the video)

"The Harpoon Forest"	Finished Harpoons 1	Finished Harpoons 2	RC Steerable Fin Section (Non-Flying Model; Tailcone Removed for Photo)

Finished Seawolfs	Woody Painting Seawolf	Woody and Kim Detailing a Seawolf

Harpoons In Shipboard Launch Rack	Harpoon #1 Launch!	Harpoon #1 Outbound	Harpoon #2 Away!

Harpoon #1 Different View	Harpoon #2 Different View	Film Crew Preps Shipboard Launch Rack for Another Round	Harpoon #3 Loaded

INCOMING!	Harpoon in the Ocean After Landing

Seawolf Missile	Enemy Missile	Enemy Missile Explodes

Harpoons

Click here to download Tripoli Level 2 test practice software (404 kb), created by Geoff Elder.

Click here to view a PDF document detailing the various requirements and differences between Model Rocketry, Large Model Rockets (those requiring FAA notification), and High Power Rocketry. (Thanks go to Doug Sams for this nice piece of work!).

Frank Working On Soren's Probe	Soren's Probe Launch Preparation	Soren's Probe Launch