Taking a cue from the latest terrific issue 9 of the fanzine ANDERSONIC, which includes an excellent article on X-Planes and Century 21 by Vincent Law, I have taken a very close look at one of the X-Planes mentioned: the Russian SPIRAL, a direct response to our good friend and SWORD stalwart, the X-20 Dyna Soar. What specifically caught my eye is the 50 50 mothership designed to carry the Spiral into space. It bears a remarkabloe resemblance to the as yet unidentified SWORD Re-Entry Task Force 1. Both are pictured below for comparison (TF1 is the Tarheel version courtesy of Astronit)
The similarities from the tip to the bubble canopy are clear particularly the ridged pointed nose, the front landing gear and the location of the bubble. Now admittedly the Spiral 50 50 has a different wing form and is carrying a combined fuel tank and small Spiral glider on its back , where Century 21 have installed a dorsal wing, but these aside I think it's a likely source. It was a contemporary of the X-20 Dyna Soar and C21 toy designers will have seen both in the aviation press they were no doubt browsing through for ideas over coffee. Here are some more pictures of the Spiral 50 50 mothership.
Spiral pictures c/o Wikipeadia, and Aerospaceguide.net
And You Tube come up trumps again
And finally, again signposted by the highly recommended Andersonic fanzine, here is a 50 50 model flying and crashing in the Captain Scarlet episode TREBLE CROSS around 6.30 minutes coutesy of You Tube
Hi Paul,
ReplyDeleteI think all the credit for that Captain Scarlet bomber should go to Mike Trim. I've just read that interview in Andersonic, where he says he doesn't remember the "russian thing". Which isn't surprising, because the Soviets tended to keep everything very secret until it was a proven success (failures being bad for propaganda - the first the West knew about Sputnik or Gagarin was when they'd been well & truly launched).
I've had a look at the Spiral project, and I only find books from the glasnost 90s listed as references. That b/w picture shown in Andersonic and your blog entry is from NASA and dated as late as 2002. So I'd be rather surprised if pictures of a secret Soviet space project were around in the mid-60s...
Mr Trim went on to mention the "flying bathtub" (which is the NASA M2-F1 later developed by Northrop) which he says he stretched and added the tails on wingtips to. So if that indeed might be the TF1 origin, then again the credit should go to Mr Trim.
Fwiw: I always thought it'd be in some illustration or Japanese film because of its highly-stylised, fictional looks.
Sorry to be a spoilsport...
--
Paul
looks pretty damn close to me! Definitely Swordesque!
ReplyDeleteHey Paul, naturally all credit for the Captain Scarlet bomber goes to Mike Trim and I would not want to suggest otherwise - he's the designer. I didn't mention Mike Trim in my blog piece as I didn't want to spoil the Andersonic article for anyone who hasn't read it yet. As always, my own interest is the origin of SWORD toys rather than the creation of models for Anderson's TV shows. As such my bloglet last year on the Flying Bathtub was purely from the Space Glider SWORD box art angle rather than its use in a TV show although anything Mike Trim says about his models is always of huge interest as he was there and part of the source of all this stuff. Hope other readers get hold of Andersonic as its such great value for money.
ReplyDeleteDrat, that was a bit of wordprocessoritis. Point I was trying to make is that the CS bomber's design was much more Mike Trim's work by developing a US lifting body shape into something that looks significantly different from that US lifting body.
ReplyDeleteAs opposed to much more closely copying a Soviet design, which is what's suggested in the Andersonic article, but where Mr Trim replies he can't remember the "russian thing" and where I'm suggesting it's unlikely he'd've seen that design because the Soviets probably kept it secret until glasnost came along in the 90s. (Though just suggesting - I'm no expert and I may be making too much of those publishing dates :)
Best
--
Paul