About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Monday, May 13, 2024

F is for Follow-up - Dragonbird Whirlyflies . . . Well, Actually, 'Helicars' & 'Helijets'!

Just got in from work to find this treasure in the inbox from Brian B in New York, on the subject of Sikorsky S-51's (previous post, below) and their relationship to Dan Dare! In his own words:

"It was delightful to see the blog post on Tudor Rose helicopters, as I coveted them as a kid but never owned one. 

I remember being aware of the S51 from the movie 'The Bridges of Toko-Ri'

When Frank Hampson created the world of Dan Dare in Spacefleet, he based the helijet on the S51.


When I built my train layout 'Northern Heights', London in the 1950's, I had to have a hint of Spacefleet so adapted a model of an S51 into a Helijet, just as Frank Hampson did."


And obviously that's what I was remembering when I mentioned Dan Dare in the other post, you can see where Fairy were coming-from with their Rotodyne too, and the similarities betweens names and designs extends to the IM 'Rotorship'.

I really love the conversions of railway figures (?) to Spacefleet personnel, including two Treens! From the left I think we have Dan, Digby and Sir Hubert Guest, arguing about how to do the dangerously impossible, and save the World . . . again!

Cheers Brian, a real treat!

Two hours later - Brucey Bonus as the rabbit-hole provides!

https://downthetubes.net/unearthed-early-dan-dare-designs-by-frank-hampson-inspired-inspired-by-innovative-1950s-inventions/

4 comments:

Terranova47 said...

Thanks for the downthetubes piece. In the 1950's I built a plastic kit of the McDonnell XV-1. In the 1990's I visited the Smithsonian Museums reserve collection of aircraft which to my surprise had the McDonnell XV-1 prototype.

Hugh Walter said...

Thank you for the images! There's a 1:32nd scale kit of the McDonnell XV-1, but it doesn't go cheap! The other thing the rabbit-hole revealed is a set of collector-cards by Calvert, which includes a fair few of the vehicles.

H

Terranova47 said...

Thanks Hugh. I have a reissued kit in my stash and a full set of the cards.

Hugh Walter said...

Well, if you ever get around to making the former, or scanning the latter . . . !

H