DINKY EAGLES

 I remember buying my first Dinky Eagle and thinking, wow! This is so different to previous designs from Gerry's shows. At the time I didn't know that Century 21 had folded, and that Space 1999 would take a different direction in design. 

As was usual, Dinky were still reluctant to use the correct colours as was seen in the series., although they did come close with their original Freighter.

The Dinky Eagles came out in 1975, and continued production until 1980. There were five different
subtle variations, two types of Transporter and three types of Freighter. There was also changes in packaging over time. There was two different bubble pack display plinths for each, and finally a window  box, with some having a polystyrene moon surface display.

There are also other very minor differences in the tooling used as can be seen above. Another is some have a middle strut at the front of the gantry while others don't. There's also some slight variations in the colour of the  plastic windows in the pod.  .

Although there's only five official variations, you'll count six on the above photo as one is the mythical all white Dinky Eagle which, as most of you will know was never available as an actual Dinky release.

As is obvious, this is just a mix of a white freighter Eagle and a white transporter pod.

The two transporter variations were both green with a white pod. The earlier versions have chromed engine bells and landing jets, red fuel tanks and yellow manoeuvring rockets..

The later version had red plastic engine bells and landing jets, with polished metal fuel tanks and red manoeuvring jets.

The early version of the freighter was white with a red freight pod. Chrome engine bells and landing jets, red fuel tanks and red manoeuvring rockets.

 The later version of the freighter had red plastic engine bells and landing jets, with polished metal fuel tanks and red manoeuvring jets. This was the last version in white.

This final version of the freighter is in blue, with a white freight pod, and would have originally been in a window box, and some would have had slightly  different barrel stickers without the radioactive symbol. Like the later transporter Eagle this had red plastic engine bells and landing jets, with polished metal fuel tanks and red manoeuvring jets.