The Sky Hawk was a private dirigible owned by Starduster when he entered the nation's armed forces. The Military reinforced the structure, refitted a new, more powerful boiler and turbine to supplement the airship's large helium balloon, and added a triple-cannon to defend the forward arc, easily operable by the dirigible's operator. In addition to the pilot, the craft can hold up to six men and their supplies, and the turbine is quiet enough for insertions of forces behind enemy lines.

This is easily the most invasive surgery I've performed on a vehicle in some time. I had to dremel out a hole in the back for the turbine, extend with missile bits the rear struts to support that, and learn how to use wall-filler foam to fill out the empty wings and the rear where I placed the boiler cover.

At that point, I stalled for weeks. I knew I wanted a coppery, brassy tone for the base of the gondola, instead of the bluish, canvas-like look it had. Eventually, I got over my laziness and found a cardstock color close to the wings' color. On the MOTU parts and several cardstock pieces, I mottled on brass paint with a sponge, then cut and glued the panels to each of the triangular areas of the airship. I then followed up by painting all the struts with the brass paint. I chose to leave the top awning alone (but for the struts) as with the balloon over top, a canvas awning made sense to me.

The balloon itself is a 2L bottle, with cloth stretched and sewn to that shape. The stays, as well as the cannons, are simply super-glued in place.