Chris Lee and some of his buddies have decided to embark on a monster of a project. They are building a full scale replica of Han Solo’s babe magnet of a ship from the original Star Wars films, The Millennium Falcon. The build is taking place about an hour west outside of Nashville, Tennessee, USA by this group of ‘mad for Star War’s visionaries.

 

How big?

When the build is complete it will be bigger than any of the set pieces from the original films.

This is just how big it will be:

Length: 114 feet
Beam (docking ring to docking ring): 81.485 feet
Height to top of body (not counting quad-laser turret): 24.878 feet
Height to top of dish: 30.889 feet
Clearance: ground to landing gear bay level: 7.779 feet
Clearance: ground to outside bottom of cockpit tube: 13.081 feet

 

Wouldn’t this need a boat-load of cash?

Building miniature models is not the cheapest of hobbies (but the painting of the miniature orcs makes it fun enough to endure the credit card pain), so I imagine building a giant replica spaceship would make your wallet, your credit card and your bank account hurt like hell!

So the question is this, how are these Tennessee wonders going to make enough dollar to make it happen? On first glance you would think that this project would be a perfect fit for a Kickstarter project, but the makers want to keep this as a fan driven project, wanting to respect Lucasfilm Ltd.’s intellectual property rights (and yes, Lucasfilm Ltd. knows all about it).

You can’t build the Falcon out of thin air though – so this is how they are doing it. The main focus is donations of service (prop/ model makers), building materials and construction machinery. They will also be organising build weekends – so if you want to get involved you too could have a hand in building the legendary ship. They are also selling some pretty sweet ‘support’ t-shirts on their site.

 

Lee had this to say about the project:

“This is a quest to build the ultimate Star Wars prop: a 1:1 scale ESB/ANH hybrid Millennium Falcon with complete, correctly scaled interior. Yes, I have completely lost my mind, just like most of my friends and family say. Except for my close Star Wars fan friends, who say ‘cool, can I help?’”

Want to know more? Visit Lee’s site here: FullScaleFalcon.com 

I love how crazy ambitious this project is and I hope that it succeeds. It is likely to be a few years in the making before it is complete – but hey, what a seriously cool hobby to have. I can’t wait to see the end result.

Below are a few shots from the build of the cockpit.

What do you think? Is this project off the charts insane? Or just crazy enough to be awesome? 

Img Source: Blue Prints, Millennium Falcon