REVERSE ENGINEERING

I got the complete series of Thunderbirds on DVD for Xmas and ive been patiently working my way through each episode, looking for stuff I can identify that had been used in the design and modelling process. One thing that always struck me was the forward facing wings on TB2 and I recall getting the Rosenthal toy as a kid and putting the wings on backwards, much to my dads annoyance. Looking at the development of the forward swept wing, it appears that the Luftewaffe engineers first hit on the idea with the development of the Junkers 287 jet bomber. Due to issues with vibration in the airframe at high speeds and engineering problems, it was never taken further. It wasn't used successfully till 1984 with the Grumman X-29 managed supersonic speeds in level flight.

I havent managed to get much further with my viewing of the dvds, but i have realised that the order on the discs is not the same as the original broadcast sequence, so four episodes in I watched 'The Perils of Penelope'. Never one of my favourite episodes, as I always found the Creighton-Ward centric plots a bit dull. However, as I was watching the action as TB2 arrives and lands outside the Anderbad tunnel to unload the Monobrake, I was utterly stunned to see the Pod deliver the machine from a door in the rear of the pod! Or was it just me ?