What's The Matter?

I had yet another senior moment today! Since my childhood in the 1960's I have been safe in the knowledge that my world was made up of three reliable states of matter: gases, liquids and solids. Alas, my reliance on this holy trinity was shattered when I discovered that there is indeed a fourth state of matter, that of PLASMA! Now, like most people, I've come across the term in various guises such as blood plasma, plasma drives and more recently, plasma TV's, but I'd never associated the term with a new phase of matter. On further investigation online I further discover that Plasma is not only everywhere but makes up the vast majority of the Universe!  People's lexikon Wiki even describes countless-more non-classical states such as Strange and Degenerate Matter! The mind boggles!

No doubt readers will now inform me that world of Sci-Fi and the Anderverse, if not SWORD itself, are full of references to Plasma! Doh!

Flash Crash

Here's the great Fireflash crash from the Thunderbirds episode Trapped in The Sky
courtesy of You Tube. Century 21 Toys should have made one of these to go with their
Zero-X!

Destination:Gutter!

Reading Mikes Fireball story recently put me in mind of the countless summer days when i'd come back from holiday with some kind of flying toy or rocket. Out on the beaches in the wide open spaces, catapult launched toys were great fun and easy to track as they came in to land. However, when I got back home and tried them in the yard or garden, it was always a recipe for disaster. The Topper Cape Canaveral set had been responsible for disabling the fairy lights on the xmas tree and the Merit Water Rockets had disappeared into oblivion over a garden wall several times. Woolworths was always a safe bet for cheap toys and one such was a neat little Cape Kennedy set like the one pictured above. The gantry itself is about six inches high and has a small wheel for moving the tower back and to and also a handy lift on the side for loading up the crew. The detachable launcher was fitted with a powerful spring and the plastic rocket was made with a sliding nose cone. Included in the pack were two fan shaped satellites and the idea was to attach a string to the base of the rocket fin and tether it to the gantry. When the satellites were sat on the nose of the rocket and it was launched, the string paid out, stopped the rocket at its set height and jerked the nose forward, sending the satellites flying on. Naturally, I never used the string and was content to blast the whole lot as far skyward as I could manage, invariably losing a satellite in a tree or in the gutter! Years later I found a sealed carded set in the states via ebay and although it was comparatively inexpensive, ive no longer any desire to try it out in the garden!

Fireflash Down

During our time out at Mars Base on Friday, conversation turned to Anderson models and Mike B commented that there is a dearth of Fireflash kits and more notably toys. Given that the Fireflash airliner features heavily in Thunderbirds and even makes the end credits, J21 or any of the other big names never produced a toy of the iconic aircraft. In fact the only real source is a the recent Aoshima release in diecast. Im not desperately up to speed with japanese kit releases, but does anyone know or own a kit version of the plane ?

Zero Moon

I was thinking about the Space 1999 pilot Break Away. If I remember rightly, after some high jinks at Moonbase, the moon leaves Earth's orbit. What would the effects be if this actually happenned? Would it be catastrophic for us here on the mainland?

More is MorT

The Mortoys Six in One Space set has appeared here before, most notably for its inclusion of large scale spacex vehicles, the Cricket, Tractor and Nuclear Freighter. When I bought this partially complete set on ebay in the states, it arrived with some parts missing such as the MSV and Moonbus clones, but did have the blue 'moon buggy' vehicle in the centre top of the box art. At the time, I was so blown away by the other vehicles, that I didn't really pay much attention to the non-canon vehicles in the box. However, while discussing the origins of the set with Paul V, he remarked that the blue vehicle was a direct lift from the Thunderbirds pod vehicle 'Firefly'. As I couldn't really see the direct connection due to not having a Firefly toy to compare it to, I deferred to his superior knowledge and promptly moved on to the next toy.

Then, some time later after I was deliberating about painting the Airfix Starcruiser in a Zero X style paint scheme, Terry H sent me a snap of a Bandai Firefly toy which showed the 'Jet Bulldozer' toy in blue and red livery on the box artwork. But what really excited me was the toy itself, which clearly was the inspiration for the simple Mortoys copy after all!

Jump to It

Sometimes the simplest ideas have the most profound effect. Take this Stelco Space Rocket set. A suction cup with a stand and a spring inside, which when compressed, gradually forces the suction cup away from the base, making the whole assembly leap into the air. Couple this with a nifty silver space rocket or a nice green lunar lander and youre away!

I'd like to say I had this toy from childhood, but this particular version is an american toy which I came to via ebay. In the early seventies though, I did have a number of similar jumping toys such as a frog and a ladybird. During a memorable holiday in Devon, I found a small orange LEM. In the same series as far as I could see in the box in the sweetshop, was one of the iconic orange rockets which appear in may Apollo Moon Exploring sets. Unfortunately, as is always the case, I only had 5p of my pocketmoney left! Besides the rocket, LEM and possibly the Apollo Service module, where a spaceman and the aliens which abound in the AP EX sets, so somewhere around may be a garishly coloured jumping Wotan figure! Possibly the best part about the Stelco set is the lovely card back artwork though.

Ap Ex Rocket and Jumping LEM

Three original Jumping Aliens (at rear)

Hawk, Eyed

 

During the archive inspection, Commander Woods commented that one of the Tarheel Nova Rocket series had been spotted from another maker. Apparently, Tarheels neighbour Durham Industries made the green Hawk spaceship. I was a bit surprised at this, as I had been aware of it for some time, as I had the Durham Nova along with a Tarheel ship too. The following blurry photographs attempt to show the two trademark insignia on the base of each ship.

The Nova series took various elements of Thunderbirds and part of the SWORD Probe Force Two to create three new ships. The green Nova is almost identical to the Triang Rocketship Hawk, apart from the TB2 style tailplane.