IMAI SKY 1

 

As my old Skydiver photos were quite well received, here’s a few photos I took back in 2016 of my Imai SKY 1 kit.

Like all Gerry & Sylvia Anderson TV series’ related Imai kits, accuracy is generally sacrificed for play value and gimmicks.

The Imai SKY 1 kit is certainly no exception. Friction drives and a battery-operated remote control could whisk the plane backwards or forwards across the floor, along with a rear opening flap, at the back of the fuselage which housed a tiny SHADO Mobile or a vague representation of Paul Foster’s car. Not to forget the spring-loaded ejecting missiles under the wings.

All good fun, but like most kit builders I wanted to, at least try to make it look a little more like what we saw on screen.

Obviously, the wheels were out, and the opening flap was sealed. The spring-loaded missiles were glued in place.

It didn’t come with any cockpit detail, so a rummage in the bits box provided an ejector seat and pilot.

I was never going to waste my time trying to make it more screen accurate. The idea of trying to alter the rear tail fin and it’s position, along with the kit having the same detail on either side of the fuselage, plus the totally wrong shape of the nose intake would have meant it might have easier to leave it in the box, and just buy a decent resin kit of it.

Once it was painted and weathered, and decals were added it didn’t look too bad. To the casual observer the inaccurately-shaped intake is probably it’s worst aspect.

Imai re-released the kit several times over time; mine is probably from the mid-eighties.

Aoshima released a version of the Imai kit in 2004, using more or less the same tooling. It was still designed to be built as a toy, but this time it had a remoulded , and more accurate looking nose section.

A reproduction of the original SKY 1 box art by Shigeru Komatsuzaki, reprinted on the back of the Aoshima kit.