chutes away!

Years ago I found a huge boxed toy at a jumble sale in Dewsbury.

It was called Chutes Away.

It was made by Gabriel and released in 1977.

I was blown away by this find and was excited when I set it up at home. Essentially Chutes Away was/ is a large plastic plane attached to a support.

Parachutes could be dropped from the plane into landing pots on a revolving circular ground. All in all a fabulous toy! Or is it a game?

Here's the original TV advert from 1977 with a mesmerised Dick Van Dyke no less courtesy of You Tube.

As with virtually everything I stumbled across in the 90's I sold my Chutes Away but I always remember it being one of the best toys I found. It recalled my own escapades at the helm of my brilliant Airfix Flight Deck toy in the 60's.

I've recently discovered that there was also a Night Vision version of Chutes Away! What a cool idea turning the lights off and dropping your chutes!

Does anyone remember Chutes Away, Night Vision Chutes Away or Flight Deck?

Are there any other toys like these?

*

Postscript from reader Mark J

Here is said Night Chutes Away!

It popped up in my feed direc‎tly after Dick Van Dyke!!

Mark

this sinister feast

October hardens like a scab.

Two devils, dancing, demand again the Beast

spew up the Samhain, its festival, its Hell

and ravenous, like greed, let it out to feed,

upon the innocents, the krill it craves, oh yes, He'll gorge

this night, His sinister Feast of Halloween

where incognito He misrules the sweet processions

Before returning like a crab, full fattened, to the darkest sea.

DeAGOSTINI THUNDERBIRD 1 BUILD

Here’s my completed 1/144 scale Thunderbird 1 build to compliment the DeAgostini Thunderbird 2.

As I’ve previously pointed out, this model kit was originally produced by Aoshima, and has been repackaged by DeAgostini, with a pre-coloured nose cone and atomic pile covers for anyone who prefers not to paint it.

The kit is fairly simple, although I found it easier to assemble and paint each section – the main fuselage and wings; the atomic pile drum; and the engine section – prior to putting everything together.

Once everything was primed, the main body and engines were sprayed silver, while the atomic pile drum was sprayed Tamiya TS-23 light blue. I left the rear stabiliser fins off at this stage.  I primed them and sprayed them light blue. Once they were dry, I masked off the blue areas, re-primed them and finally sprayed them silver.

I decided to fit the wheeled landing gear, which is seen in the earlier episodes. The long landing struts are nearer the fuselage which, to my mind gives a less fragile look, and as the main strut is in the middle of the wing I reckon it gives a little more support, and balance.  If I build another with the ski landing gear I imagine the model will need weighting.

I then painted on some black detailing – the exhausts and the ram jet intakes on the engine section, and the landing wheels.

Before I put everything together I applied a very thin wash of black, just to give some light weathering. 

Then I applied the decals. I found the black and the blue stripes slightly long so they needed to be carefully trimmed in situ. Everything else was fairly straight forward.

Finally, everything is glued together and left to dry.

spacimens from mars

I love these vending machine LP aliens!

10 cents! Bargain!

brian's Club Daikaiju collection: its beastly!

Here's Brian's fabulous M1 Club Daikaiju collection over in New Jersey:

Gorgo: Mum and Junior. Rat Bat Spider from Angry Red Planet and Reptilicus from the Danish-American monster movie of the same name!

ufo on tv

Hi Woodsy

I've just noticed that my cable box has updated my channels, I now have ForcesTV and it's showing UFO Sundays at 10pm! 

I watch TV through Youview on TalkTalk - anybody else have this channel?

Mark J

uncle joe's mint balls

Like toys, some sweets define a generation.

For me Uncles Joe's Mint Balls WERE the Sixties and early Seventies.

I can't recall a time back then when there wasn't a tin of the sticky orbs somewhere in my folk's house. At Christmas all three boys got a tin!

They were almost too big to fit in my gob but my two older brothers devoured them!

Uncle Joe's Mint Balls were made in Wigan down the road from where I lived. Very much a Lancastrian brand associated with my home county, they are still being made today at Uncle Joes!

http://www.uncle-joes.com/

You can even get a T-shirt!

Did you have some as a kid?

countdown to halloween: monsterama model kits

Make way for these monstrous model citizens

introduced by the Mistress of the Night Elvira,

courtesy of You Tube.