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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/

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4 comments:

  1. Terranova47May 14, 2024 at 9:01 AM

    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.

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  2. Hugh WalterMay 14, 2024 at 12:30 PM

    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

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  3. Terranova47May 14, 2024 at 11:38 PM

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

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hugh WalterMay 15, 2024 at 3:12 AM

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

    H

    ReplyDelete

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