While this vehicle began as the I.S.C. Invader, such significant revisions and additions have been made that it's truly grown into its own design. There's still much room for improvement though, especially in terms of the elevator, which still doesn't function as seamlessly as I'd like it to. I have the feeling that I'm at the beginning of a long process of developments and upgrades, similar to where I was at the beginning of the A200 series Mobile Fortresses design many years back.
The craft elevator deck. I've expanded out the shaft in order to allow the deck to move between levels, not just stopping below the top one and above the bottom one. It was necessary, however, to leave a gap between the elevator deck and the rest of each level. If I built the level out too close to the elevator shaft, the elevator would bump against it instead of going through. I would need to have a much tighter controlled deck that didn't sway from side to side at all in order to remove the gap.
Also still working on making the deck rise to the point that it is flush with the rest of the top level. I've tried a variety of approaches to this problem and have yet to meet with success.
The big trade-off in creating a significantly larger carrier with an elevator deck that runs through four levels is that the mechanism that causes the elevator to rise and fall is a lot more clunky and harder on the eyes.
As with the original design, we're dealing with too much weight to entrust to a crank lever or a motor. It's got to be done by hand. Anchoring the pull-bar to different places on the rear wall of the carrier will result in the elevator deck moving to different levels.
Sub-level 1.
Two seeker jets are housed in the rear.
In the fore section of this level is the command center. It was darn tricky to design a play setting for figures this small, but I think this solution worked well. That command chair is HUGE though.
Raising the pull-bar once again will cause the elevator deck to drop down another level.
Sub-level 2, along with two more seeker jets housed in the rear.
Another seeker jet is housed in the fore section.
The pull-bar is raised all the way to the top deck.
Causing the elevator deck to drop to Sub-Level 3, the lowest level.
Our Valkyrie docks.
And, in case you need room for one more jet, here's a final seeker housed in the fore section.
All three sub-levels from a distance.
Finally, the control tower.
Flight control stations, complete with enormously over-sized chairs.
Main flight control computer.