01-31-2010, 02:15 AM
Philip Rae was the guy who built the Narcissus from scratch,and he also made the "Betty". At that time he named it after his girlfriend whom he never married. The decal was on there before he named the craft. The decal was simply from a 1/32nd scale WW II bomber. As back in the early days of maritime law,it was customary to name your vessel after a girl for good luck. This was later adopted by the military when WW I broke out. The plane was usually named after a girl they knew at home. Sometimes they would name it for something they liked,or admired such as,their hometown,or a favourite saying. It wasn't until WW II that pilots started to paint a picture of a girl with her name on the side of the plane they flew.
The "Betty" of "Aliens" was the name of the first dropship that the team flew in. The second one was simply called " the dropship ". The APC was the tank like vehicle that the team was dropped to the surface of the planet in. APC = Amoured Personell Carrier. This was based off an actual airline vehicle. There were two of these made for the movie with an RC model version made for scenes where a large,and expensive stage set would have to be made normally,but scaled down to RC size to save the cost of doing so. In the scenes of the "Betty" right before the pilot was to be killed by the alien - you can see the red decal circle,and the girls black leotard colours are inverted from the original decal,but it's because of the dark colouring of the ship itself. Otherwise,it's painted to be exactly the same as the original decal on the Narcissus.
There was an excellent site that Philip Rae hosted where he explained all this in detail,but it's long gone from the internet. This was pulled sometime last year. There's another site devoted to behind the scenes photos of the models from "Alien",but it's not good for much else. There are a few good shots of the models,but these are mostly of them in their finished state.
The "Betty" of "Aliens" was the name of the first dropship that the team flew in. The second one was simply called " the dropship ". The APC was the tank like vehicle that the team was dropped to the surface of the planet in. APC = Amoured Personell Carrier. This was based off an actual airline vehicle. There were two of these made for the movie with an RC model version made for scenes where a large,and expensive stage set would have to be made normally,but scaled down to RC size to save the cost of doing so. In the scenes of the "Betty" right before the pilot was to be killed by the alien - you can see the red decal circle,and the girls black leotard colours are inverted from the original decal,but it's because of the dark colouring of the ship itself. Otherwise,it's painted to be exactly the same as the original decal on the Narcissus.
There was an excellent site that Philip Rae hosted where he explained all this in detail,but it's long gone from the internet. This was pulled sometime last year. There's another site devoted to behind the scenes photos of the models from "Alien",but it's not good for much else. There are a few good shots of the models,but these are mostly of them in their finished state.