Tie fighter pilot questions.

Hi there, and a merry christmas to all.

I have recently seen a Don post tie fighter helmet for sale, its looks pretty cool. It costs £55, allthough i will try to haggle for it.

Here are a few questions before I decide if i want to buy this helmet:

1. Does the helmet require much modification (aside from the pipes at the front)

2. Is this costume going to be expensive to make? I am only 16 years old with no job, so i'm wondering if i should start down the road of costuming.

3. Are the resources hard to find? like i said before, i earn do not much money.

4. Is there anything else that can be done with the costume, besides making it into Baron Fel?

5. Is £55 a good deal?

6. How old must i be to join the 501st?

7. And finally, Shall i buy the helmet or a trench coat?

I have not put any sort of reserve on this helmet, so i need to know pretty soon.

Thanking you in advance, Fall-on-jin

 

That's not a bad price for a Standard DP. If it turns out to be a Classic Action version, then you'd be getting a Really Good Bargain. (CA's are a bit bigger than the Standards, and typically go for twice that price when you can find them.)

Unfortunately, you need to be 18 to join the 501st.

As far as SW costumes go, the TIE pilot is fairly inexpensive to make. Almost any other Imperial costume, or Fett costume, would be much more expensive. Generally, Jedi costumes are the cheapest to make, IMO.

I've just recently acquired a Tie Helmet myself. I'm going the Baron Fel/181st/Chiss route. I'm using the typical black flightsuit, but due to a lack of local sources of the E. German leather boots, I'm updating the uniform a bit with modern black leather/nylon combat boots. Rather than the chest armor, I'm using a black pistol belt and military suspenders (as seen in "Obi-Wan's Jedi Academy" site. Imperial "snowflake" patches and flat lenses are on the way, and at some point I'll acquire a black or maybe grey flak vest.

As far as the helmet goes, some drill out the little "teeth", replacing it with some type of screening, some work on the ear areas with a washer and bolt for each side, some install a fan for better cooling, and some put a voice amp in. I'm planning at least to install some sort of hard-hat liner to make it fit better, along with the above mentioned flat lenses. As far as the chest box goes, I think I'll try to make my own, again more of a custom design.

I got an idea from a friend with a really nice x-wing costume - a kneeboard. These are worn on the pilot's thigh to keep info they need quick access to. He used photoshop to make some excellent Imperial ship graphics and built up the kneeboard with some plastic, so that it loked like it was made along the same lines as his chest box. I'm working along the same lines to make the Imperial version.


For all your Imperial piloting needs, I would check this site:

http://pub79.ezboard.com/bimperialnavyomegawing

Hope any of this helps.

 

thanks, i will have a look at that site.

 

I'm finishing up my TIE Pilot costume now. The standard Don Post TIE Pilot helmet is most likely what you're getting. It's smaller than the Classic Action helmet from Don Post. I have the CA version, so to me, the standard version looks like a shrunken head. But I do think it's a bit smaller than it should be.

Mods to the helmet include the tubes and painting the frown and front...teeth?... (place between the tubes) silver.

I have a chest box from a known prop maker that is excellent and I've installed some fans inside the box to blow air into the helmet, through the tubes. I will make my own chest and back armor using styrene plastic. I won't go to the trouble of molding anything out of clay and vacuform over it, though. Instead I'm going to tray and "fake it" by using a heat gun to bend the shapes. I will TRY to make the raised chest and back areas by puttin a block of wood under the plastic, some heavy objects on top, and then heat gun the top. HOPEFULLY, the weights will push the plastic down over the block of wood, giving the raised square shape I need. I hope!

I have a custom sewn suit, but a black flight suit would work fine. Just add patches to the shoulders. I found some German jack boots on ebay for $25. I also found some black gauntlet gloves at cheapasdirt.com for $12.

Scott

 

hmm, £55 works out at about $90, does that help any? and the helmet looked alright to me, allthough i havent seen any others. are there any distinguishing features about the standard DP and the deluxe version to the untrained eye? (apart from size, i wouldn't know....)

 

Anyone? I did notice that the inside of it looked very uneven... i dunno if that helps.

 

On mine - the standard - the Don Post copyright information is imprinted as recessed characters. I'm told that on the CA, the text is raised.

 

Yeah, I think it is raised on the CA.

A CA helmet would be worth much more than $90. I bought my at a LOW price of $99 when they were easily available. They're probably worth double that now. So going by the price, it's probably the basic helmet that retailed for about $60.

Scott

 

Fall-on-jin, Smiling Otter has directed you to the best TIE fanatic site on the web. (*waves at otter!*)

You should be able to get any information that is needed about the TIE costume from the many good troopers there who have built theirs, and/or feel free to email me anytime and I can email you pics and descriptive procedures as need be.

The TIE pilot suit is fairly inexpensive and a lot of us started out as Stormtrooper wanna-bes who didn't have the $$$ for white armor. (Of course, we now know that TIE pilots are meaner, badder, and outrank the stormies )
So in regards to your fundage query, you should be good.

501st membership minimumn required age is 18, but Omega Wing may not be so picky. Most of our members are in the 501st, but the Wing is not an official detachment as of this point.

May I say that you have made an excellent choice of costume, and best of luck with it! You should have many happy hours working on the helmet mods and so forth. As I said earlier (to Fall-on and any other aspiring TIE pilots), please feel free to contact me directly if there's anything I can help with.

TI-1420
Omega Wing Reaper 1
<bullseyetie@yahoo.com>

 

I am currently working on my TIE outfit and my cost breakdown has been roughly:

Black Military Flight Suit $40.00
Black Engineeer Boots $50.00
Black Gauntlet Gloves $25.00
Black Belt/Silver Buckle $15.00
Helmet $75.00 (I have a DP Standard)
Chest Box $50.00 (We build them ourselves!)
Other Stuff (ie. comm. board, patches) $25.00
Flak Vest-non-armor $15.00 (for material)

I am enjoying putting together my Pilot outfit and greatly look forward to seeing it in it's completed state!

 

hey NyghtFyre thanks for the price lowdown, and TI1420 thanks for the reference. As i am short on cash at the moment, i might not be able to snap up the helmet before its gone. Its been there for a while, and im in a part of the UK which isnt costume crazy, so i might be in luck.

 

The Classic Action helmet does have raised copyright text and is (C)1997.

Scott

 

You can't go wrong by going to the Omega Wing site and checking it out new members are always welcomed and you will find a wealth of information on the Tie Pilot Costume you will not find anywhere else.
The copyright info is raised on the DP C/A and indented on the Standard..
Also you do not need 501st membership to join Omega Wing (which is good for you people out there that want to do a Tie Costume and are not 18 yet) but 501st membership is encouraged..

RAPTOR
Phantom 05
Archangel Squadron Leader
Omega Wing
TI0350
501st Australia/New Zealand Garrison

 

*BUMP* one more question about this subject... is there a Noticeable difference in the CA and Standart helmets like the darth Vader ones?

 

The most obvious difference is size. If you saw two people standing next to each other, one with the standard helmet on and the other wearing the classic action, the person with the standard helmet would look like a witch doctor shrunk their head.

Here is a pic of me wearing the classic action:

[image=http://www.skaught.com/starwars/images/TIE_Pilot.jpg]

Here is a pic of someone wearing the standard helmet:

[image=http://www.501st.com/memberdata/04/63/ti0463_full.jpg]


See the difference? Other than that, I haven't looked closely at the standard helmet to see if there are other differences.

Scott