The Jeffries is my tribute to Walter Matthews "Matt" Jefferies 1921 – 2003.

Matt Jeffries was the art director who designed the original U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 for Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek TV series. Even to this day much of the “Trek” universe has its visual concepts based on the vision of Matt.

The most lasting tribute to Matt can still be found in the Trek universe in the form of the “as Jeffries Tubes” which were named in honor of his contributions to Star Trek.

It is rumored that the ship I modeled here was one of the original concept drawings for the Enterprise but was rejected because Roddenberry wanted a ship with a saucer of some type. In the late 1960s the drawings were turned into a model and sold as the Leif Ericson Galactic Cruiser and again released as the UFO Mystery Ship which glowed in the dark. The ship finally made its way into the Star Trek cartoon series but didn’t make the final cut for the episode.

The ship also made its way onto the cover of the Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven novel “The Mote in God's Eye” as the INSS MacArthur. There is also quite a large Ericson / INSS MacArthur fan following with lots of fan fiction, artwork forums and web sites dedicated to the Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven universe.

I named my Orbiter rendition of the Leif Ericson, the USS Jeffries and its bug eyed “Mini Scout” the Galileo. I picked Galileo for the unnamed scout because Matt Jeffries also designed the Galileo shuttle craft which appeared in several episodes of Star Trek.

Features:

Lousy flight modeling, yeah, yeah I know, I suck at the flight modeling. I do the best I can but I am sorely lacking in that department. I was also a little hampered by the Orbiter short coming of not being able to fly about or land with a docked ship. I solved most of the handling problems by making the Galileo really light and the Jeffries really heavy and as s a result they fly a bit uniquely.

Wing tip contrails. I have attempted to emulate the wing tip contrails see on fighter aircraft during air shows or high speed flight. Both ships will get contrails off their wing and tail tips when the speed exceeds 100m/s in atmosphere. It’s not perfect but interesting and something new.

Blinking navigation and strobe lights.

Unlimited fuel. SciFi ships don’t ever require fuel. Well at least mine don’t.

The scout can dock in the Jeffries and I have included the ability of using the IDS when docking but you have to use the Shift T to target the Jeffries IDS. I don’t suggest landing the Jeffries with the scout attached because Orbiter doesn’t like it when you do.

The Jeffries does not have any visible exhaust flames as it uses a SciFi drive system unknown to me.

Both ships fly pretty good and I’ve had no problem docking the scout to the Jeffries.

Installing:

Orbiter version 031217

System requirements

Beats me!

I have only run it on my system which is an AMD 1.8ghz, 512meg ram and a

GeForce FX 5200 Ultra 128meg graphics card using the 53.03 driver.

I would expect it to wok with any system that can run Orbiter with the

high resolution planet textures.

I had no beta testers so I'm crossing my fingers that it works for other

people. If you have problems please post in the AVSIM Orbiter forum or

email me at jtmarcure@hotmail.com . You can post in the main Orbiter

forum but I could miss it because your post may get kicked off the

first couple of pages.

The folder structure is intact so just unzip in your main Orbiter folder.

To remove delete all files/folders named Jeffries, J_Scout and all textures that start with LE_. If you don't have any of my other add-ons you can also delete the textures named with JTM_.

Disclaimer.

I can't see any way that this add-on can harm your system and I am not responsible if you decide to install it and end up trashing your system or Orbiter in the process. If you don't understand how to install Orbiter add-ons or are unsure as to whether or not to install it then DON'T. If you have any doubts at all then just say NO to installing it because it is not worth messing up your system for a space ship you don't really need.

Everything in this add-on is freeware and can be distributed as long as it is not for profit. All the models and textures were created by me from scratch and any resemblance to models and textures in use or not are completely coincidental. The depiction of the Jeffries was done to help keep alive the vision and no disrespect or infringement is intended. If you happen to own any of the rights to something in this add-on and do not want me to distribute this add-on with your stuff please contact me.

Credits.

I wish to thank the following people.

First and foremost Dr. Martin Schweiger for sharing his Orbiter program with me and allowing me to create the add-on ships.

Vinka, for the 3ds2msh program, which I use to convert my Anim8or models to ones used by Orbiter.

R. Steven Glanville for his free Anim8or modeling program that I use for all my models.

Matt Jeffries, because if he hadn't done it first, then I wouldn't have had anything to base my model on.

Jacqueline, Jacob and Josephine, my wife and kids who put up with me stuck in front of my computer hours on end and had to endure my badgering them for opinions on how it looked.

Until the next add-on…..

Jon

a.k.a. JMARCURE

jtmarcure@hotmail.com