RE-ENTRY TASK FORCE 1 ORIGIN - SPIRAL 50 50

Taking a cue from the latest terrific issue 9 of the fanzine ANDERSONIC, which includes an excellent article on X-Planes and Century 21 by Vincent Law, I have taken a very close look at one of the X-Planes mentioned: the Russian SPIRAL, a direct response to our good friend and SWORD stalwart, the X-20 Dyna Soar. What specifically caught my eye is the 50 50 mothership designed to carry the Spiral into space. It bears a remarkabloe resemblance to the as yet unidentified SWORD Re-Entry Task Force 1. Both are pictured below for comparison (TF1 is the Tarheel version courtesy of Astronit)

The similarities from the tip to the bubble canopy are clear particularly the ridged pointed nose, the front landing gear and the location of the bubble. Now admittedly the Spiral 50 50 has a different wing form and is carrying a combined fuel tank and small Spiral glider on its back , where Century 21 have installed a dorsal wing, but these aside I think it's a likely source. It was a contemporary of the X-20 Dyna Soar and C21 toy designers will have seen both in the aviation press they were no doubt browsing through for ideas over coffee. Here are some more pictures of the Spiral 50 50 mothership.

Spiral pictures c/o Wikipeadia, and Aerospaceguide.net

And You Tube come up trumps again

And finally, again signposted by the highly recommended Andersonic fanzine, here is a 50 50 model flying and crashing in the Captain Scarlet episode TREBLE CROSS around 6.30 minutes coutesy of You Tube

Monogram SST Kit

The brilliant model site Plastic Fantastic has a wealth of classic plastic kits on display and includes this 1967 Monogram kit of the SST. Unusually this version sports the nose mounted canard wings for extra stability and an even greater similarity to the C21 PF1.

DAIYA SST

Now in total SST mode I've found this fabulous DAIYA tinplate version on Ebay. A pretty penny too. Note the distinctive tubular  engines, the triangular box again and that cool box art, very reminiscent of Probe Force 1 box art especially the engine plumes! But when did DAIYA make this? Nothing in the listing. Anyone know?

And for a bit of fun here's a cool clear-bodied plastic toy CONCORDE seen on Ebay, the Fireflash of our generation.

HOVER AND TARHEEL PROBE FORCE 1

Now I've got up off the floor after collapsing when I saw WOTAN's SST by Hover, I thought I'd join the party and post its cousin the Hover PF1 (bottom), along with a whole bevvy of Darth's American SWORD again including the similarly triangular boxed Tarheel Space Glider (originally posted in the blog's first month).

Super Sonic Toys

From the desk of Paul Vreede:
Since the SST is now more on topic, I've taken some quick iPhone snaps to show the two Boeing 2707-100 toys I have. The large one is a really lovely craft, some 25cm/10in long, and bearing the "USA Supersonic" livery seen in contemporary illustrations. It has friction drive and variable-geometry wings (linked inside so they move together). It doesn't carry any markings at all, but comes in a box from our old friends Hover. The box side has a Salco trademark however (and the nr 319), so presumably Salco is the real manufacturer in Hong Kong.

The smaller diecast SST is from Zylmex and is some 11cm (4in and a bit) long. It's in Panam livery (though the fuselage stickers have gone) and is clearly marked underneath with aircraft type and manufacturer. The wings can be folded out separately, which has resulted in paint flaking off and it's also lost its landing gear. Neither of these toys connects with any other range of toys I'm interested in, but the 2707-100 is a lovely design (sad it never flew for real) and the large Salco/Hover toy is such a beauty that I just couldn't leave it be. :)

12 WHEEL SCRAMBLE BUG A GO GO

What could be better than one Scramble Bug? Several joined together of course! Here's the MULTI USE 12 WHEELS MOON TRANSPORTATION! No brand name visible but it really is an intereseting toy. I know there are other artics around but I like the Century 21 Bug colour scheme - yellow, red and black - on this one. And the lego pieces are called GO GO BRICKS! Now that's one cool bit of rebranding. With Go Go Bricks you could biuld an entire Carnaby Street just for you! Currently on Ebay.

PROBE FORCE 1 BOX ART: THE SEARCH BEGINS!

Wote's post today of Paul's (Vreede) truly amazing discovery of the SST/PF1 connection is inspirational! Well done Paul! As you know I'm trying to tie-down the original box art sources for the C21 SWORD toys and this is a massive leap forward as to where to look for the PF1's. I've had a quick look to see who else produced SST in plastic. No other toys as yet but there are kits.

c/o wings900.com

Here's the LINDBERG SST (above) from the early 1970's. Amazingly the original artwork survives here and the site author is also searching for the artists's name!

c/o Gasoline Alley

And above is the MONOGRAM version again from the early 1970's.

The above shows how artists handled the engine plumes but our C21 and Maruman PF1's are earlier. Certainly the C21 PF1 we can date as 1967. I thought it would help if both boxes were shown together. I've flipped the PF1 box and SST artists impression so that they at more or less the same angle as the Maruman kit. I would say that the PF1/Maruman boxes have the basically the same artwork with some differences. The clincher for me is the inclusion of the brown cratered moon in both. So my feeling is that Maruman copied Century 21. But who did Century 21 copy? Paul's (Vreede) SST discovery offers a number of artists impressions including the one below - it's not the basis I don't think but there is an artists name on it (bottom unflipped picture). Can anyone make it out? Follow Paul's links to Dark Roasted Blend/Flickr to this and more in their source.

c/o Dark Roasted Blend

Probe Force One - Origin ?

Paul Vreede shed light on the Probe Force One origin -

Seeing the Probe Force 1 kit once again provoked a feeling I'd seen something like it before. Still can't put my finger on where exactly, but one of the American SST designs is what I thought. A google revealed that what I had in mind was the Boeing 2707-300 design, which has that distinctive tail and the four engines in a delta wing.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/avi_abrams/506508651/sizes/o/

I then discovered that apparently it was NASA that did a lot of the initial work, using a design called SCAT-15F (Supersonic Commercial Air Transport) which they continued to test until the early 80s. That had a much longer wing (though a smaller tail) again with the four engines in round housings.

http://lisar.larc.nasa.gov/IMAGES/MEDIUM/EL-2001-00400.jpeg

As you can see from the pictures, it's very likely that some depiction of these craft will have inspired the looks of Probe Force 1. If you do a google on "scat 15f" (between quotes to get the exact expression) then there's a lot to read about it. And Dark Roasted Blend has a nice collection of SST pictures.