The wife is out, and so the domestically installed test tank has been put to good use. Surprisingly Intrepid fits! The Edwardians made baths properly!
13kg of lead sheet and lead acid battery brings her down to her water line. Something is right because the original ship weighed in at almost 12,500 tons. Every kilogram at this scale works out as 1000 tons. She is a big old lady.
So the test - flood the dock and see if you could drive a landing craft in and out. Well the dock walls are not installed yet, so no control. A bit alarming - Titanic in the bath. It floods and keeps on going - so clearly the 2 litres is going to the job. The depth of water will be able to be controlled by flooding the chamber to the correct amount and retaining some buoyancy. At the moment without the dock walls it just keeps on going. Of course the dock provides some of the flooding weight as well. Flooded it must take in another in another 2kg of water. It is certainly satisfying to know that there plenty of ballast space in the flooding chamber.
So now to get on with the plans for the mechanics - motors, servos, pumps etc. This is the really complicated bit. How to effectively and easily control all the different functions of this complex model. Quite apart from twin props and rudder, we need to be able to anchor, flood the dock, lower the stern door, and then control two landing craft to motor in and out under their own remote control. All this as well as the usual lighting and navigation lights. Lowering the davit held landing craft would be nice as well, but all surely possible in such a large hull.
But all ideas and prior experience would be really welcome from forum members - I look forward to hearing from folks who've tried some of these things before as well or those who've just thought some of these problems through!!!