I've been admiring this wonderful ATM image of the Bristol Belvedere twin-rotor Helicopter. Its so Gerry Anderson! I love the classic airport setting with the prestige car - a jag? - in front.
I never owned the Dinky version as a kid but I have bought and sold a couple over the years, always a treat to find languishing in die-cast piles at boot sales. Its such a lively light green with flashes of red. Its amazing that Dinky modelled this aircraft - only 26 of the real thing were ever made I understand.
Have you got a Dinky one/ had one?
image; Ebay. UK
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Speaking of twin-rotors, Paul A sent me observations about the HUP-1 helicopter.
Hi, Here is a short film from You Tube, which I thought might interest you. It shows a US Navy Piasecki HUP-1 Retriever single-engine/twin-rotor helicopter giving a rescue demonstration. Note the opening door on the underside for picking up downed airmen. Later versions did not have the angled endplates on the tail stabilisers.
It is very similar to the later, and much larger, CH-47 Chinook. There were several toys based on this aircraft, and a few kits. Some of these toys have appeared before on MC.
By the way, that item was the first time I ever commented on a MC post, having just found the site at the beginning of 2020.
Paul Adams from New Zealand
Double-rotor helicopters are a magnificent genre, and these pix and links really bring them back. When I was a college student in New York City in the early 1970s, I used to marvel at the twin-blade helicopter that shuttled passengers from JFK airport to the roof of the Pan-Am building in downtown Manhattan! SFZ
ReplyDeleteThe shuttle to the PAN-AM building ended when a rotor hit the roof and disintegrated sending shards into the street. I worked on East 43 Street and we could feel the air pressure change when a helicopter went over head.
DeleteBack in 1959 I built the Airfix kit of the Bristol Belvedere and used it to deliver a squad of troops from the Airfix Combat Group into action on my train layout. Memory says the undercarriage legs were hard to assemble.
Seeing that Pan Am helicopter must have been thrilling.
DeleteThere's an RAF Belvedere on display at Hendon museum - "skinny" springs to mind as soon as you see it ! - god knows how they performed while on Ops in Borneo back in the 60s
ReplyDeleteFenton
Great info. Cheers Fenton!
DeleteThe car is a Bristol 401, Woodsy.
ReplyDeleteAs to helicopters, Belgian Sabena used them at the 1958 World Fair as ferries between the airport and the expo, both a pair of Vertols and a number of single-rotor Sikorskys.
https://www.airhistory.net/photo/289403/N74057
Perhaps that made economic sense at the time as the motorways didn't much exist yet (when they did it would take less than 30 minutes by taxi but longer today due to traffic growth clogging up everything).
Apparently they'd later chopper you over to Paris as well judging by some posters I've seen.
Best -- Paul
Ta for the info Paul. Maybe one day there'll be pilotless choppers taking us everywhere!
DeleteThe twin-rotor helicopters that flew from the Pan-Am building in New York were Boeing-Vertol 107 models, the civilian version of the US Navy and Marine Corps UH-46 and CH-46. Airfix did a kit of this, initially as a Swedish Air Force version, then as a US Navy UH-46 Sea Knight.
ReplyDeleteThe 107 also appeared in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice - this is the helicopter that picks up the car that is trailing Bond, with a giant magnet, and drops it in to the sea.
Airfix also did a 1/72nd scale kit of the Bristol Belvedere, which came out in 1959.
Great info Paul as always.
DeleteToy companies - Marx especially - seemed to relish bringing out the latest and greatest in aviation technology. I have several airplanes Marx made based on prototype aircraft wherein only one or just a few were made, sometimes because the real aircraft was a spectacular failure!
ReplyDeleteInteresting that Ed. Which prototypes were you thinking of?
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