In the recent post on the Anglo Gum SPV card, showing the Captain Scarlet SPV and a helicopter, you said that you did not recognise the helicopter. I thought immediately of the American Sikorsky S-51, an early helicopter design, first flown way back in 1943.
The type served with the US Army as the R-5 (R for Rotary wing, a designation that covered both helicopters and autogyros), and the US Navy and Coast Guard as the HO2S and HO3S. The type was also built in Britain by Westland as the Dragonfly, and this was the first British-built helicopter to serve with the British forces.
MOONBASE CENTRAL: ANGLO GUM SPV (projectswordtoys.blogspot.com)
Here are a couple of photos of my Dinky die-cast Westland-Sikorsky WS-51 version, which is tiny. This was first released in 1957, model number 716, and only came in red and cream civil colours, fuselage registration G-ATWX.
The nose windows are painted on in silver, there being no clear parts. The three-bladed main and tail rotors were tinplate, and are frequently missing from surviving examples, so I was very lucky to find a complete model.
The helicopter on the card is a much chunkier design, and the undercarriage is different, but the basic S-51 shape is there.
Paul Adams from New Zealand
I had this Dinky as a kid, and still do! The main rotor rivet was lost during play, so it's survived all these years with a carpet tack holding on the propeller!
ReplyDeleteGreat that your toy has survived the decades, and still has its rotors. That carpet tack is now a part of its history. I found mine second-hand in a model shop that still carries second-hand models, but you do sometimes see them at model fairs.
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