Airfix kits used in Thunderbirds

[Ben B]

1 hour ago, Hroth said:

 

Retrieving the launch trollies was probably a job for a punishment detail....

 

 

Reflecting on Gerry Andersons prediliction for underground facilities, he probably employed the construction team who built the caverns for Marinevilles Control Tower and the office/flat blocks.

 

"Tom-Tom warning signal"

"Anything can happen in the next half hour!!!"

 

 

I used to love that, even if the practicalities of hiding a whole town underground are bonkers. You have to wonder if people in that world moaned how much of their taxes went on defence... imagine if our PM said "oh yeah, and everyone will have to pay an extra grand this year, so we can build a flying aircraft carrier for a mere five sexy female fighter pilots. Why? Oh, just in case our next mission to Mars turns into a cock-up that triggers an interplanetary war" :)

[Halvarras]

3 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Yorkshire fittings.

From 50 years ish ago;

Y1. Socket.

Y9/Y99. Metric/imperial adaptor.

Y12. Elbow.

Y15. Cooker backplate elbow.

Y24. Tee.

Y69. Cylinder connector.

 

I could go on, but the worrying thing is I can't remember what I had for breakfast.

 

Mike.

 

I can reel off the numbers of blue small yellow Hymeks (and variations) and which blue 47s had cabside numbers and 4 bodyside logos but.........yeah, I know what you mean. Odd, isn't it?!

[Kirby Uncoupler]

I always thought John Tracy was the weird one, up there in his space-station (Tb5?), what did he do all day? He must have done some long shifts, being on call 24/7, how did he relax in his non-existent spare time? He couldn't get pissed between episodes, whilst in charge of a moving vehicle, and since he was a nerd, his attempt to build a model railway was thwarted by zero gravity. His dad Jeff Tracy wouldn't even allow him to inflate his pneumatic girlfriend, due to the dangers of a pressurised vessel in outer space. 

      I bet members of Greenpeace still have nightmares, about THAT episode where the road-building machine cuts a new dual-carriageway through the Amazon jungle, ripping out trees at the front end, and laying fresh tarmac at the back end (complete with dotted white lines), before going out of control and making the M25.     

                                                                                                 Funderbirds Are Brill   BK

[chris p bacon]

I'm sure I remember reading that Gerry Anderson didn't like the character 'John' so put him on TB5 as there was little dialogue or filming.

[RJS1977]

11 hours ago, Halvarras said:

 

and how John seemed completely unfazed by his semi-isolation in space.

 

 

Although John is identified as the "space monitor", and all episodes have John on the station, he and Alan worked alternate months on the station - there's at least one episode where Alan is on his way up to relieve John when TB3 needs to divert elsewhere.

[DavidB-AU]

The TB3 crew carrier may look familiar.

[Halvarras]

1 hour ago, DavidB-AU said:

The TB3 crew carrier may look familiar.

 

Appears to prove that my recollection of a Hornby Dublo Lowmac - not the Airfix kit - was correct after all (I had one of these, thanks to a local shop discovering some HD items they didn't realise they still had - that would have been just before I spotted this in the series which is why I recognised it).

 

And look at the wall behind - two more girder bridge kit support feet on display, and that's just in this view! I wonder how many they got through in total?!

[2ManySpams]

On 03/09/2023 at 23:59, Darlington_Shed said:

On a related note, the wonderful Adam Savage has talked about how there are parts of model kits "on every spaceship you've ever seen in the Star Wars universe". Well worth a watch here:

 

 

Edit: For those who don't know, Adam was a modelmaker at Industrial Light & Magic.

 

Well, that was a rabbit hole!

[kevinlms]

19 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Ah that type of lemon squeezer. I was half expecting one of these things.....

 

Better than eating the contents of one of these!

https://www.cleaningshop.com.au/contents/en-us/p47611_jif-cream-cleaner-lemon-375ml.html

 

[kevinlms]

19 hours ago, andyman7 said:

Airfix Girder Bridge parts top centre. I claim my prize 🙂

Girder angle top right AND the lineside fencing leading to it, across behind the rocket.

 

Is that a pair of tank hatches below the lemon squeezer?

[Kirby Uncoupler]

10 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

 

Although John is identified as the "space monitor", and all episodes have John on the station, he and Alan worked alternate months on the station - there's at least one episode where Alan is on his way up to relieve John when TB3 needs to divert elsewhere.

 

Wouldn't it have been better to send Tin-tin up, to relieve John?  Tin-tin was the Tracy Island bike.      BK

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

One thing I could never figure out back in the day was why NASA needed a massive control room with hundreds of people and computers to send one rocket into space, whereas as Thunderbirds only needed half a dozen or so to run their entire operation.

 

Mike.

[kevinlms]

1 hour ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

One thing I could never figure out back in the day was why NASA needed a massive control room with hundreds of people and computers to send one rocket into space, whereas as Thunderbirds only needed half a dozen or so to run their entire operation.

 

Mike.

But NASA had Uncle Sam paying for it.*

 

* Well not actually paying for it, but just increasing the national debt, of which the likes of the Republicans don't seem to care about even attempting to reduce it these days. Far more important to whine about 'stolen' elections for years afterwards, even though courts disagree, because of no suitable evidence has been presented.

[Halvarras]

1 hour ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

One thing I could never figure out back in the day was why NASA needed a massive control room with hundreds of people and computers to send one rocket into space, whereas as Thunderbirds only needed half a dozen or so to run their entire operation.

 

Mike.

 

Cos they had something NASA didn't have........brains! Sorry, I mean Brains!!😁

[andyman7]

4 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Girder angle top right AND the lineside fencing leading to it, across behind the rocket.

 

Is that a pair of tank hatches below the lemon squeezer?

Having watched another YouTube film it's amazing to see the creative way various Airfix trackside kits were used - as well as the Girder Bridge, parts from the Travelling Crane and Footbridge got used quite a bit too - and not just obvious things like Girders - the film highlighted structures that used the little square footbridge bases as protrusions on a machine. Apparently, the go-to source for the powered tracks on many vehicles was this might Victory Toys model of the Vickers Vigor tank:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1950-s-1-16-scale-Victory-industries-product-Vickers-Vigor-crawler-tractor-/204383888098?hash=item2f963aa2e2%3Ag%3AZB8AAOSwR-tkoNqs&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4I%2Bjb3OBGQKYNOuAURnhcQj5pi7IyN%2BWTeYlHRdAsLrC4zGTMBbEHESCuET1oGQ%2FxlGfdj%2FxepppAh6OYPisPV%2FlpVNtsbA6Duk5QcJP%2F1PUg9FwfF7vu2w06BFEcB3GzyXTf%2FN5YxQO8cFMprSm%2BbQkjM3YnByi2PeokiVcsE4DN%2BjCYifDu%2FDodaPf3D1QG3JwQYHfHzRCxW1%2BqIrL0Tvgqr%2F7Z6tMbgviTbi1%2BfaS89nKE2jQxbDJw%2Bs6lswKgLCEYwMeuA4K521KttgQRAZ%2ByqBI98C%2F1AlTDU7nO41a|tkp%3ABk9SR8qix9nMYg&nma=true&si=ZgE62wJSAferPWy49aRz2nMJi1k%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

[zed]

34 minutes ago, Halvarras said:

 

Cos they had something NASA didn't have........brains! Sorry, I mean Brains!!😁

Well my daughter works on the ARTEMIS program for NASA and she has brains.  She spent 45 consecutive days in the control room for the most recent launch, last November and even she would admit there is some duplication of effort.  But as they were told 100% success is the only outcome.  She has opined that during the prep for launch and their review of Apollo data, they are still amazed that APollo was so successful.  

 

Apologies for thread drift but here is the ARTEMIS launch

[ejstubbs]

2 hours ago, zed said:

they are still amazed that APollo was so successful

 

And by now a lot of the smart people who worked hard to make sure it was successful have either retired, or passed on.  It's an issue that NASA ran in to when they decided to start doing manned missions beyond Earth orbit again: most of the people who knew how to do it because they'd done it before weren't available to help this time around.

 

One thing I distinctly remember from my days as an engineering student at Cambridge was the long corridor lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves groaning with NASA journals.  I'm sure the knowledge is all in there...somewhere, but I suspect that finding it in millions of pages of hard copy would be a daunting task.

 

OTOH, starting afresh with a blank sheet of paper can lead to usefully innovative new ways of doing things.  Like lowering landers onto the surface of Mars from rocket-powered hovering cranes (which still sounds bonkers, but seems to work a lot better than surrounding the lander with airbags), and returning vertical launch vehicles to Earth in a controlled manner so that they can be re-used.

Edited September 5, 2023 by ejstubbs

[Enterprisingwestern]

2 hours ago, zed said:

Well my daughter works on the ARTEMIS program for NASA and she has brains.  She spent 45 consecutive days in the control room for the most recent launch, last November and even she would admit there is some duplication of effort.  But as they were told 100% success is the only outcome.  She has opined that during the prep for launch and their review of Apollo data, they are still amazed that APollo was so successful.  

 

Apologies for thread drift but here is the ARTEMIS launch

 

I don't remember that, which episode was it in?!!

 

Mike.

[Halvarras]

3 hours ago, zed said:

Well my daughter works on the ARTEMIS program for NASA and she has brains.

 

Oh yes - I really did mean NASA doesn't have Brains, the Thunderbirds' resident know-it-all and (arguably) the Greatest DIY Expert Of All Time.

 

In the real world there's no disputing that there are plenty of people at NASA with brains 🙂!

[DavidB-AU]

On 04/09/2023 at 08:59, Darlington_Shed said:

On a related note, the wonderful Adam Savage has talked about how there are parts of model kits "on every spaceship you've ever seen in the Star Wars universe". Well worth a watch here:

 

 

Edit: For those who don't know, Adam was a modelmaker at Industrial Light & Magic.

 

Related

 

 

[97406]

Space 1999 rather than Thunderbirds, but there were bits of lunar module in the Eagles. Here seen represented on the 22" Eagle kit.

 

[Ben B]

2 hours ago, 97406 said:

Space 1999 rather than Thunderbirds, but there were bits of lunar module in the Eagles. Here seen represented on the 22" Eagle kit.

 

 

There's a rather wonderful example of upcycling kits, but logically so, in the pilot episode of "Space 1999". Briefly you see the Spacedock, the space station between Earth and the Moon (it gets destroyed of course, this is an Anderson production) and it's made of Apollo rocket bodies. I've read a behind the scenes piece where the visfx team thought it was logical that the rockets would have been launched, used, and repurposed during the early days of the push to colonise the moon. It also meant the designers didn't have to waste too much time on a minor model for a couple of scenes :)

[Ben B]

6 hours ago, DavidB-AU said:

 

Related

 

 

 

I've seen that vid before, it's fascinating :) You have to wonder how many of some kits just ended up never getting built, but added to piles in VisFX workshops...

 

I used to be a member of a model-making forum with a lot of Gerry Anderson fans, trying to recreate certain iconic vehicles from the various series. Certain old 50's and 60's toys are now insanely expensive and rare, just because of Anderson fans hoovering them up to build replicas. It's like the stories of how rare and pricey a certain kind of flash gun for SLR cameras is now, because they were used as a basis for Luke Skywalkers lightsabre, and fans bought them all up make their own.

 

I guess at least nowadays there's 3D printing to recreate some of those rare old parts.

Edited September 6, 2023 by Ben B
Spelling

[DavidB-AU]

52 minutes ago, Ben B said:

 

I've seen that vid before, it's fascinating :) You have to wonder how many of some kits just ended up never getting built, but added to piles in VisFX workshops...

 

I used to be a member of a model-making forum with a lot of Gerry Anderson fans, trying to recreate certain iconic vehicles from the various series. Certain old 50's and 60's toys are now insanely expensive and rare, just because of Anderson fans hoovering them up to build replicas. It's like the stories of how rare and pricey a certain kind of flash gun for SLR cameras is now, because they were used as a basis for Luke Skywalkers lightsabre, and fans bought them all up make their own.

 

I guess at least nowadays there's 3D printing to recreate some of those rare old parts.

 

Going into the kits that were used to make Star Wars ships is another kettle of fish, but the short version is there are a LOT of Saturn/Apollo and Harrier bits in them.

[Kirby Uncoupler]

Having given up on my Google maps search for The Guns Of Navarone, I needed a new challenge.  The new task was to find and locate Tracy Island, using Google aerial images and Instantstreetview, there were various clues like palm trees, and lots of water. I have now narrowed the search down to the Pacific Ocean or the Isle Of Wight, of course the latter did have a rocket base, and the rockets were constructed on the island (clue?), but I haven't seen a volcano? Both of these establishments closed down around the same time  as the Thunderbirds set in Slough, which is roughly 80 miles away.

      I do know that Jeff Tracy retired in 1968, and was surgically separated from his desk, whilst suffering from bad health problems, brought on by the gravelly voice. Although born in Tunbridge Wells, Jeff had gone to work for the Americans as a pioneer astronaut in the 1920s, hence his mid-Atlantic accent, designed to be accepted by audiences, on both sides of the pond.

       None of the sons wanted to carry on with the business, there just weren't enough major disasters on a weekly basis anymore, and the fuel bill was horrendous.  Sadly the brothers went their separate ways, Scott got a job in Manchester as the new mayor, Virgil became a Buddist Monk, Alan got a boring job, because he was boring, John lives in a remote mountain shed, where he finally got to build his model railway, and Gordon went for gender re-assignment. Brains went to work for the North Koreans, and built their new rocket base, whilst Tin-Tin and her Dad opened a brothel in Bognor Regis (since raided).

       So Tracy Island was abandoned, as soon as I have found it, it can feature in the Abandoned Engineering tv series, although the end location in the latest OO7 film "No Time Today" looked strangely familiar?

 

                                                                                             Cheers, Brian Tracy. (clue?)