AHI SUPER ROCKET PLANE MOVIE

 Azrak-Hamway's American moonship in orbit. Whoosh!

THE PROJECT SWORD TOYS THAT NEVER WERE!

 In 1969 this trade article appeared.

SWORD collectors will have been excited by the new of a new Project SWORD toy described there, the Lunar Climber.

Alas, the Lunar Climber wasn't a Project SWORD release.

Nevertheless, it was a cool Century 21 Toys release and by the power of the internet here it is today!

Images: John Swan

The other toy mentioned in the article was the Moonship, which is described as not being Project SWORD.

That was correct but again its a wonderful Century 21 Toys entry anyway and by the power of Helsinki Base here it is, both red and blue versions, one boxed.

Image: Arto H.

What do you think?

Which do you like the most?

The Moonship has Landed

 My home made Moonship is done. It's the one at the back. Century 21 Toys original at the front.

Reunited with my bits box I was able to finish the plane I bought in Germany.

Not perfect by a lunar mile but it'll do.

The home ship has sound effects too. It just needs a flag. But which?

My Moonship: The Icing Problem

Work on my copy Moonship is painfully slow not being at home. Very little progress to report.

I've borrowed some lighter fluid off a chum and cleaned the plastic body thoroughly to remove the old decal adhesive.

I've snagged my corn plaster box to whittle a new transparent green windscreen from.

I've sourced a box of cake icing products by Ernesto that contains perfect-fit nacelles, which I will repaint in Blighty. The set was 50p in a charity shop here in Germany.

Trouble is, ideally I need another set to get that really long double nacelle look on both engines.

I'm now trying to find another cheap Ernesto icing set!

First Phase of the Moonship

 

Well it's starting to look slightly like my work area at home here at the German flat.

I've stripped off all the decals from my airliner and done as good a clean of the glue residue as I can without access to lighter fluid. 

I've cut out a windows decal strip for each side and finally today repositioned the front landing gear, which is currently drying.

I'm considering a new and wider windscreen next.

Some progress at least in my downtime here

Ship Shape!

 To keep my toy hand in I've bought an airline to mess with.

Costing 8 Euro, this ARJ21 plastic plane is a foot long, has detachable parts, illuminating nacelles and engine sounds.

More interesting is how much it looks like .... 

..... The Century 21 Toys Moonship! 

I've begun basic tinkering on the liner, removing some stickers. Without my bits box here I may struggle to find parts, but here goes .....

Friction Long Distance Jetliner MF 105 from the Kang Yuan Toy Factory Shanghai China

Appearing as part of my JR21 alerts, I saw this tin jetliner recently on the 'Bay, a fine old Chinese plane.

It's clearly related to the Chinese tin Moonship that a few of us own. Its from the same factory.

The box art is even better than the toy. Looking long and sleek it's got Fireflash vibes galore. The toy looks shorter than the illustration.

Is this a toy you own?

Moonship at Moonbase

 This is my new Century 21 Moonship.

I found it in a cabinet of old stuff in an antiques shop.

I've blogged about the Moonship since the start of Moonbase. Click on the Moonship label below for more.

Have you got a Moonship?

AERION MOONSHIP

I was reading this about a new Supersonic plane https://www.ge.com/news/taxonomy/term/5844 from 2019 and I thought, Wow! 

That new Aerion AS2 looks a lot like our friend the Century 21 Moonship from over 50 years ago! See what you think!

Now that's flying!

Image: GE

Image: Arto

PAINT YOUR SPACE WAGON

I saw this old tin bundle on auction yonks ago and noticed the rocket.

Its the Chinese tinplate "Moon Rocket", which has appeared many times here under the name of the Moonship [click the label below for more], but this one is different. It looks sort of shoddy.

Would you say its been painted?

TIN ROCKET PLANE MF101 ST-1

I saw this a while ago, a tinplate Rocket Plane MF101 on Toy Hunter's site

https://www.toyhunteruk.co.uk/product/vintage-friction-drive-tin-plate-rocket-plane-no-mf-101/

The description doesn't say Made in China but I guess it is.

It recalls those other sleek Chinese toy rocket ships we feature here, the Moonship. I onder if these are related to the Rocket Plane? Anyone know?

ORIGIN OF THE MOONSHIP?

Ever since I blogged Moonship Meltdown in 2008 I have been in love with the Moonship.

Whether it be this original Century 21 version...

or this light blue AHI clone, I have pondered where the design came from.

Well, 8 years later I may just have something!

This is the Learjet from the early 1960's.

and this is it with the tail and wings photoshopped out

compare it to the Moonship art the same angle....

What do you think readers?

A contemporary plastic friction toy was the Lear Jet by MEGO Corp. Compare its body and windscreen to that of the Moonship.

If you have several millions spare you could always buy your own real Learjet here!

CHINESE BOXING

Here's my ameteurish attempt at creating a box for the Chinese Moonship. Not perfect [had to use two pieces of paper so it's a poor match] but it does the job for the display cabinet! And it was fun!

SOVIET MOONSHIP

My eagle eyed chum and fellow SWORD fan Arto up there in Helsinki Base spotted this fascinating gem recently online on Ebay.

Its a tinplate MOONSHIP.

But this one is RUSSIAN!

Can anyone translate the Russian?

I assume its Soviet era. Correct?

I also assume that the paper note depicting a girl holding what appears to be a bear came out of the toy's box too. What is it?

This tin toy looks more or less the same as this Chinese version we've featured since the start of the blog. The only differences are the rear fins. The Chinese version has engine nacelles. The markings are different too.

The Russian box is different as well.

There are two versions of the Chinese box.

This one seen here flattened.

and this one, which was presumably anglicised for the English -speaking market

Have you got a toy Moonship?

MOONSHIP TOY REPAIR SHOP

If you can stand it there are 4 more parts on You Tube from 2014!

AHI OR CENTURY 21 TOYS?

This image appears in the 1969 AHI Catalogue as featured on the brilliant Alphadrome.

It is the AHI Super Rocket Plane in what appears to be black and white.

A question was raised on Alphadrome [by Joe K] as to whether this was a AHI or a Century 21 version?

I was interested to see if a colour picture of this AHI toy would look the same when rendered black and white too.

Here's a colour shot from the book Future Toys along with the back panel of the window box.

Here's the above colour image turned a dark form of monochrome on my laptop.

and here's the same in a lighter tone.

What do youi think readers? Is the top AHI catalogue photo the same?

I'm not so sure.

For the sake of completeness here is the Century 21 version called the Moonship.

In colour

and black and white

Here's the AHI Catalogue image again

Apart from the Union Jack sticker they look the same to me.

I think Joe K was right. AHI photographed a white Century 21 toy rather than the correct blue AHI version for their 1969 catalogue.

But why?