Hi
Here is a short clip from You Tube showing a 1950s one-man US Army Flying Platform. It would look great flying over a Lunar or Martian landscape with an Astronaut at the controls. There is also a tiny, one-man helicopter. Neither is for me - you are basically hanging in mid-air, with no structure around you.
Not sure if either of these have been kitted, but in 1961 ITC released a kit of the much larger, three-man Piasecki VZ-8P Aerial Jeep, or Airgeep, in 1/35th scale. This was re-issued by Glencoe Models in 1990. Again, it would look great in a space setting, exploring alien worlds, or even being flown by aliens on Earth.
Flying Platform mid 1950s - YouTube
Paul Adams from New Zealand
Yikes, those are scary concepts - glad they didn't "take off!" All we need is all the bad drivers of cars crashing around the sky in their personal flying machines!
ReplyDeleteFlying platforms were part of the promised land of our retro-future. We wuz robbed!
ReplyDeleteThere are quite a number of tin toys based on these concepts, as they appeared in the fifties, the golden age of the tin toy
ReplyDeleteAh, the human version of the Dalek 'Hoverbout'.
ReplyDeleteLooks more like an Airfix 'Fleep' than the real Fleep!
ReplyDeletehttp://airfixfigs.blogspot.com/search/label/Astronauts
H