Rescue Me Too

I have posted about this before, but I thought for the benefit of new readers and as its a continual thorn in my side and I am still a cantankerous old git, I would post another time.

The card art for the R6 craft is a little misleading, in that the engine block is much more akin to the cool venturi style nozzles of the Sword Task Force series. The reality, as we have seen is the rather naff reversed J2 rocket engine! The other anomaly is the floating globe like thing next to the fuel tank, this doesn't come with the toy or get any mention on the card. I assume this is simply artistic licence for a craft being 'rescued'.

Something else which has occurred to me over the years (you know what they say about the devil and idle hands ) is that the little craft must have some means to travel the greater distances involved in facilitating rescues, unless it is intended just as a local runabout in lunar or space outpost vacinity.

To this end, I theorised what the 'bulk lifter' element of the craft might look like - perhaps something like the Titan Dyna Soar launch vehicle? To illustrate this I used the lower stage of the glorious Revell Convair Space Shuttlecraft, which has the sleek lines and restrained design seen on the R6.

 But what about deep space rescues - surely this diminutive craft would struggle to reach a disaster in time ? A bigger motive force would surely be needed to get around the system ?

A later idea came about after I picked up the jet turbine element from a JR21 Mac's Car from Joe 90. I was always fascinated by the powerful looking engines on the Dinky versions, so I thought I might use this odd piece for a custom build with the R6 and a couple of bits of Multimac toys.

Whichever way you look at it, the R6 is a nifty little craft with some excellent detail, even down to the tiny silver astronaut sat inside the ejectable capsule.

As far as the Saturn V engine grafted onto the back, I will just have to accept that this was just a cost saving measure on the part of the designers.