SEA POWER

 Following on from the recent Submarine Aircraft Carrier post, here are a couple of images for submarine and sea launched planes. Air Progress magazine from 1965 shows a Convair concept vehicle capable of submarine activity and apparently sea launching, in a similar fashion to SKY 1. The article below from British magazine Air Pictorial from about the same time shows the plane in submerged mode too.

In 1953 Convair produced a working prototype of the Sea Dart, supersonic interceptor. Provided with ski's the plane could successfully land and take off from water, although was never intended to be full submersible.

https://youtu.be/SOrj2cSDO-M?si=uTjkkkAH-9QD8K8u

The idea of a sea launched or submarine aircraft may seem like purely science fiction and toy designers caught on to the idea very quickly. Japanese company Gakken released a set of three submarine interceptors - presumably based on a cartoon series judging by the card art.

Each of the three models has an internal impeller, which draws in water from the large vents and propels it from the rear nacelle around a transparent dome with a light inside.

None of the four models I have actually work, either due to loose wires or corroded contacts, so I have never been able to test them, as they are especially difficult to get inside!

The orange AX 01 is the Pippin Toys version and the others are Gakken.

The Gakken releases were also distributed in the U.K by Raphael Lipkin's Pippin Toys and another distributor called Europa. Both boxes describe the vehicle as a 'Hydro Jet' boat.

Not to be outdone Redbox toys also made a pair of interesting vehicles, named simply 'Aqua Jet'

The same principal applies, with an internal impeller projecting a jet stream from the rear, while the body of the vehicle is supported on floats. The Aqua Jets seem to have more in common with ground effect vehicles like the Caspian Sea Monster or Ekranoplane, that 'flew' a few meters above the water at tremendous speeds.

Additional: Found this illustration of a 'flying submarine from Speed and Power 1970 annual!

 

ED'S PUSHING TIN: Lockheed 'Jet Star' CL-329 - Hitachi

Greetings Moonbasers!

This Lockheed JetStar from Hitachi is based on the real-life C-140 built by Lockheed. In 1957 the JetStar was the first aircraft to be designed from the start as a dedicated business jet but sixteen were ultimately produced for Air Force use starting in 1962 and remained in service with the Air Force until the 1990s.

The Hitachi version follows the standard two-piece design of tin-litho aircraft by having a fuselage and removable wing section containing the friction motor. It measures 7" (17.8cm) L x 7 1/8" (18.1cm) WS x 2 3/4" (7cm) H. Oddly, my toy came with the box top, but no box bottom.

From Vegas Air Field

Ed

SILVER SURFING

 

Another neat Shuttle I saw surfing auctions. Not a radio but radio-controlled. Its the silver chromed finish that does it for me. Wow! Do you like it readers?

Goodbye Ingenuity

 NASA's Martian copter is no more.

It's reddened  rotoring is sadly over, joining Man's scrapyard of dead space tech.

So long chopper.

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

THE REAL SUBMARINE AIRCRAFT CARRIER

 

The Century 21 Subamarine Aircraft Carrier, has assumed an almost legendary status on the blog, ever since I confirmed a vague childhood memory of seeing the toy in a shop many years ago. As parts of the toy began to appear in a readers garage, it soon became apparent that the toy did actually exist and very shortly afterwards, a boxed version popped up.

The vehicle had long been known from the pages of TV 21, where it featured in a Ron Embleton illustrated Stingray strip, which presumably was based on the actual toy.

You can read about some of the history of the toy and speculation about the box art here:

https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2022/06/david-nightengale-and-submarine.html

However, I was researching an entirely different vehicle yesterday and came upon an interesting site called Air Force Declassification Office https://www.secretsdeclassified.af.mil/  which at first seemed to be a unauthorised site showing patents and documents released by the military under freedom of information auspices.

There isn't a great deal of information on it, but as a document relating to the launch of a Cold War 'Sputnik' satellite caught my eye, I was drawn in. Shortly after, I saw another interesting read, about Submersible Aircraft. The document by Rand Corporation, from 1964, was a proposal for aircraft which could be stored and launched from a submersible base, thereby extending the range of a penetrator or bomber aircraft. The document shows the various wing and engine geometries ad also shows images of proposed nuclear carrier vehicles, which all bear a striking resemblance to the toy!

The full pdf can be viewed here: http://tinyurl.com/5bwf9v4t

Below are some highlighted images from the document.

Note the design of the toys 'aircraft' missiles as shown above, relative to the aircraft proposals.

WINDOWS TO THE WORLD

This is a new one on me, the Tri-ang Observation Car. How cool is that! I love that observation dome. It reminds me of other observation areas.

My favourite has to be the sky window of the Nuclear Ferry's front shuttle. The crowning glory [or is that Zero-X?] of the Century 21 Project SWORD toy range, the Nuclear Ferry is a seldom seen beauty. Only around half a dozen are known.

I was lucky enough to have a Ferry on loan for a year and gave it a good once over.

I love how two of the golden passengers have left their seats.

One is stood up near the central rail.

The other is .....

climbing the 'stairs', to where I don't know! 

Have you an observation window?

*

Addendum:

Thinking about Arto's fascinating point I went back and checked on the passengers in Robert McCall's original painting.

You can see that it is indeed a cut-out, like Arto says, and not a window.  Intriguingly most of the passengers are sat upside down in the central ball behind the shuttle and no-one is sat down in that!

What really tickled me is that there are indeed two passengers [or crew?] up and about in the main shuttle and one is even climbing the stairs! 

How cool is that! When it came to sticking to the original art, Century 21 Toys really went the extra mile with this toy.