SKYDIVER - from the 1970 TV Series ‘UFO’ created by Gerry Anderson
Skydiver is SHADO’s submarine with a high performance jet aircraft attached to the nose.
When detached the aircraft is designated SKY 1. It is launched underwater with the sub tilting upwards at a 30 degree angle. the Pilot slides into the cockpit from the main sub, and it blasts off into the sky. This is pure ‘Gerry Anderson’ magic.
I just love the way the ‘skydiver’ marking is aligned so that the ‘sky’ part of the word is on the plane and ‘diver’ in the submarine section. (as some people have pointed out, what is on the other side?) We ever see this side as this would not be nearly so cool!
Behind the scenes, SkyDiver was a detailed miniature about 72 inches long. te underwater scenes were filmed dry-for-wet - a technique used previously on ‘Stingray’, ‘Thunderbirds’ and the other sci-fi Supermarionation shows. This involves filming the model on a detailed seabed sett with a suitably murky painted backdrop. This scene was lit with appropriate lighting to represent the underwater location. The whole thing was then photographed looking through a large glass tank, or aquarium, where bubbles, small fish and tiny particles float by. When done properly the technique could yield very believable results.
Skydiver is about 120 feet long, so a 1/72nd scale kit would be just over 19” (49cm) in length. Sky 1 would of course be detachable and the kit would include the small figures for the conning tower and divers and small emergency marker buoys and escape equipment. A green, brown or yellow plastic.
Designed by Derek Meddings
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