Forgotten 1960s 'Thunderbirds' projects brought to life
June 22, 2013 12:06 AM Subscribe
Forgotten 1960s 'Thunderbirds' projects brought to life. The "Multi-Unit Space Transport and Recovery Device" (MUSTARD), the "Jumping Jeep", and the "Intercity Vertical-Lift Aircraft". "British arms company BAE has recently been through its archives and publicised some of the projects dreamed up in the glory days of the 1960s, when designers' imaginations were allowed to run riot with little consideration of practicality or budget." From The Economist magazine, which has period sketches of the designs.
I expect their assessment was correct, but I really regret that we don't have VTOL passenger jets.
posted by Segundus at 1:28 AM on June 22, 2013
posted by Segundus at 1:28 AM on June 22, 2013
I have referred to it here before but the British Rail flying saucer design from the 1970s is another fantastic vision of the future from people who grew up watching Quatermass and Dr Who. Sheer lunacy.
posted by longbaugh at 2:54 AM on June 22, 2013
posted by longbaugh at 2:54 AM on June 22, 2013
Fans seem to really have been in fashion back then.. (neat stuff though!)
posted by Ravneson at 6:06 AM on June 22, 2013
posted by Ravneson at 6:06 AM on June 22, 2013
Segundus - we got pretty close. The Fairey Rotodyne had some impressive demo flights. Really loud though, which is a lot of the reason no one bought one.
posted by Popular Ethics at 8:26 AM on June 22, 2013
posted by Popular Ethics at 8:26 AM on June 22, 2013
Of all of those, the one I find I actually like the best and is the most "Thunderbirds"-ish is the VTOL platform for the fighter. The truck is silly, and I've been disappointed by one too many concepts promising space planes (I'm looking at you X-33 and DC-X) to get excited about that.
Sort of relatedish-ly, I see that UFO did a pretty good job of predicting tilt-rotor aircraft, if not cars or fashion.
posted by CosmicRayCharles at 9:33 AM on June 22, 2013
Sort of relatedish-ly, I see that UFO did a pretty good job of predicting tilt-rotor aircraft, if not cars or fashion.
posted by CosmicRayCharles at 9:33 AM on June 22, 2013
these are all terrible ideas for various reasons, with the exception of the VTOL fighter platform, which is a good idea for the exact opposite reason that the rest of the ideas are terrible.
posted by striatic at 2:55 PM on June 22, 2013
posted by striatic at 2:55 PM on June 22, 2013
This post about the Aerotrain scratches a similar itch for me. I'm a sucker for never-was technologies.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 3:40 PM on June 22, 2013
posted by Jon Mitchell at 3:40 PM on June 22, 2013
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posted by oneswellfoop at 12:53 AM on June 22, 2013 [2 favorites]