Wednesday, 14 February 2024

ED'S PUSHING TIN: USAF F-105 A - 'AAA' / 'Haruna Toy' (Japan)

Greetings Moonbasers,

The phrase 'Pushing Tin' was used as the title of a movie starring Billy Bob Thornton and is a term which refers to Air Traffic Controllers routing and re-routing planes as seen on their scopes - aka 'pushing tin' - but it works pretty good as a title for this series of posts.

Here's another fairly large tin-litho airplane from the fleet. Today's featured Japanese tin-litho is marked 'AAA' on the fuselage which I believe is Haruna Toy. While 'F-105 A' is marked on the fuselage it is clearly not an F-105 and appears to be more of an F-104 caricature. 

It measures 10 1/4" (26cm) L with a 6 1/8" (15.6cm) wingspan and has the standard removable wing and friction motor with integral sparkler mechanism. It appears to have once had a nose cone, probably soft plastic, which is now missing. In any case it is a terrific toy from the Age of Tin.

From Vegas Air Field
Ed






4 comments:

  1. Another tin beauty - the lithography on this one is incredible! SFZ

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    1. Thank you! The litho is certainly striking on this one isn't it?

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  2. Paul Adams from New Zealand2/15/2024 4:00 am

    It does look to be basically the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, except for the shape of the wings. Once again a toy maker has problems with US insignia - the star and bar should be above the port wing, with USAF above the starboard wing. Still a great looking toy.

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  3. Thanx Paul! Which of course brings us back to the premise: it's just a toy! ...and toy makers certainly didn't put a lot of stock into authenticity, which adds to the overall charm of these. After all, if a person wanted 'accurate' all they had to do was build a scale model kit.

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