T is for Toy Fair 2019 Reports - Revell - Space Program

It was one small step, 50 years ago today? FIFTY YEARS AGO! What did we do with it . . . not bloody much would seem to be the answer! Velcro, Teflon and machines-that-go-beep with quieter beeps is the substantive answer!

It's funny, I've got quite keen to see the Revell stand each year, which although smaller than the Hornby/Airfix one is nonetheless a better display. They have a lot of made-up kits and everything is piled together so wherever you look there's something interesting to see. This year there was a lot of the Star Wars stuff we saw last year, but some new'ish things which may interest some of you.

Before you indulge in the luxury of going to and putting men on - the moon, better play with the technology (you've nicked from the Brit's) in your own sky's first, so the X-Plane program was born, which apart from the getting of the speed records lead to the altitude training which would carry-over to the space-race.

A lovely model but I'm not sure about the pilot, he seems to be wearing a standard fighter-pilots flight-suit from the 1950's, but I think he should be wearing a silver suit, similar to the later Mercury program suit?

A bit smaller than the Airfix kit (also getting a re-issue this 50th anniversary year), but including a figure I don't think I have encountered yet, might have one in the 'unknowns', but I don't think so. Also - and I'm guessing here - I think you can model them joined together?

Back to 1:48, sadly no figures, but plenty of detail to model. I well remember being allowed to stay-up late to watch coverage of the landings on the news, or special episodes of The Sky at Night (?) which happened after 'bed time'!

The weird thing is, earlier in the year; I was staying with my Godmother (in the summer of '69) and distinctly remember seeing footage of a rocket exploding on the launch pad?

Now I guess with hindsight it must have been historical footage from the space-race, but I can't find details of it. I know there was the Apollo 1 capsule-fire which killed the crew, but I think that was contained, so I don't know what I saw . . . but I was only six?!!

It was colour footage (which was rare then - on UK TV's) and the fire came from the bottom, up the side and then the Rocket (which memory serves was Apollo-like) toppled-over and then there was a huge explosion which engulfed the landing-platform and gantry?

A rather simple four-image .gif as it only occurred to me after I'd taken the  shots (one of which is slightly out of register with the other three. Note the clip-together aircraft kits and the huge Armstrong in the background.

I managed to not shoot the larger-scale figure twice (his foot was seen in previous images), but he's half-there! Also some nice laser-cut three-ply frets of Leonardo d'Vinci's inventions were on display.