Jump to content

Fantasy Aircraft


Zx31

Recommended Posts

In Wings of Honneamise, towards the end, right before the big launch climax, there is a huge battle involving the air forces of both factions. Lots of air to air, air to ground stuff going on. And per your description Zx, I think those might be "fantasy planes" as well :) . If I recall, the fighters were fairly original, featuring unusual combination of jet engines and props. Alas, I'm not sure if any kits or toys were made of them.

... But Honneamise is one of the greatest anime films I've seen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll have to check out Wings of Honneamise. Oddly enough, from one of the short YouTube videos I saw of Wings of Honneamise it looks like Sky Crawlers borrowed a design for one of it's aircraft.

67401520080325_090011_0_big.jpg

Actually, the Sky Crawlers plane is more of an updated version of the Kyushu J7W, which, as far as I know, still survives as a disassembled prototype in a crate somewhere in the Smithsonian warehouse.

Kyushu_SHindenjmodelo.JPG

Interestingly enough, it was first conceived as a jet fighter, which was reconverted into a push propeller when the Japanese jet engine industry went sour.

The Honneamise plane, on the other hand, was somewhat different, with a bulbous cockpit at the front of the fuselage and a pusher turbo-prop on a pod over the main fuselage (think a He-162 without the long tail, with the control surfaces of a J7W, and a turboprop on top instead of a Jumo). I'll try to find a picture later.

Edit: Found it. Resolution sucks, but it still shows the airframe. I think that the red colour scheme at the final combat is way cooler, anyway. Ah, BTW, look up luft46.com

woh02.jpg

Edited by Lindem Herz
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually, the Sky Crawlers plane is more of an updated version of the Kyushu J7W, which, as far as I know, still survives as a disassembled prototype in a crate somewhere in the Smithsonian warehouse.

Kyushu_SHindenjmodelo.JPG

Interestingly enough, it was first conceived as a jet fighter, which was reconverted into a push propeller when the Japanese jet engine industry went sour.

The Honneamise plane, on the other hand, was somewhat different, with a bulbous cockpit at the front of the fuselage and a pusher turbo-prop on a pod over the main fuselage (think a He-162 without the long tail, with the control surfaces of a J7W, and a turboprop on top instead of a Jumo). I'll try to find a picture later.

Nice bit of history there. I thought that the design looked familiar, but I wasn't sure it it had ever been an actual production aircraft. I noticed that the Honneamise aircraft had the slight differences in engine placement as well as the bent props.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, Porco Rosso has several aircraft designs that are based on real-world aircraft (some looser interpretations than others...)

Oh, and there's this cool little number from Atragon (which you should NOT waste your time watching for the 5 seconds it's on screen for)

post-659-1235276902_thumb.jpg

post-659-1235276910_thumb.jpg

post-659-1235277148_thumb.jpg

Edited by Phyrox
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was wondering if anyone knew of any anime or otherwise that had aircraft similar in style to Crimson Skies, Sky Crawlers, etc. I love that style of aircraft and was looking to pick up any completed kits or 'figures' I could find.

Although they are not fictional, I always thought that the early British Cold War Fleet Air Arm aircraft were uniformly unique designs, which never got much press. They served in a lot of theaters; Korea, Malay, Suez, and nearly war with Communist China over Hong Kong (1948~50). It might be hard to find completed models of them (there are a lot of good Czech-made models of them), but they are nice to look at nonetheless. (Images courtesy of wikipedia)

Supermarine Spiteful

300px-Seafang.jpg

Hawker Sea Hawk

Hawker_Sea_Hawk_-_VP422.jpg

Fairey Gannet

300px-Gannet_AS.4_NAN9-79.jpg

De Havilland Sea Vixen/Vampire

De Havilland Sea Hornet

and my favorite:

Westland Wyvern

300px-Wyvern-2.jpg

Edited by Noyhauser
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's that small die-cast "Titanium" flying wing from The Raiders of the Lost Ark. I found one at a Toys R Us. It's cool, but very small. There's also the Lego version of said flying wing that is a decent size.

Titanium

http://www.hasbrotoyshop.com/ProductsByBra...=22006&PG=1

Lego

http://shop.lego.com/ByTheme/Product.aspx?...n=534&d=519

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's that small die-cast "Titanium" flying wing from The Raiders of the Lost Ark. I found one at a Toys R Us. It's cool, but very small. There's also the Lego version of said flying wing that is a decent size.

Titanium

http://www.hasbrotoyshop.com/ProductsByBra...=22006&PG=1

Lego

http://shop.lego.com/ByTheme/Product.aspx?...n=534&d=519

Those are actually pretty cool.

Have to admit, one of my favorite models is one that I built as a kid and still have. It's a model of the Spruce Goose, with about a 2 foot wingspan (not sure of the scale).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's that small die-cast "Titanium" flying wing from The Raiders of the Lost Ark. I found one at a Toys R Us. It's cool, but very small. There's also the Lego version of said flying wing that is a decent size.

Titanium

http://www.hasbrotoyshop.com/ProductsByBra...=22006&PG=1

Lego

http://shop.lego.com/ByTheme/Product.aspx?...n=534&d=519

Aw, you beat me to it. Always liked that plane from Indiana Jones....shame they blew it up.

Fwing.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I saw a magazine article with Raiders design concepts once. There were going to be Nazi rocket/jet fighter bases and even cyborg Nazis... :)

Looking at that flying wing now - where was the landing gear supposed to go in-flight...?!

Hmm, well if they had gone with that idea, we may have never gotten to Crystal Skull... You decide which was a better fate...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I saw a magazine article with Raiders design concepts once. There were going to be Nazi rocket/jet fighter bases and even cyborg Nazis... :)

Looking at that flying wing now - where was the landing gear supposed to go in-flight...?!

Is it flawed? Sure. There are a couple of obvious shortcomings. For instance: the engine nacelles. a) note how small they are. b ) also see how far rearward they're mounted. They're way too small to house engines that would make sufficient power to push such a large craft--especially if bomb-laden--through the air. No way you'd fit a Daimler V12 in one of those. Add to that: the small surface area of where the nacelles are mounted to the body, in relation to their length + the engines' weight being focused at the opposite end; I'd say that would make this thing have a tendency for engine mount/nacelle failure if it were put through any vigorous maneuvers/high g loads.

But hey--the thing just looks dang cool. As movie props go, they get an A+ for effort. It certainly looks the part of some "evil Nazi secret weapon" from that era.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is it flawed? Sure. There are a couple of obvious shortcomings. For instance: the engine nacelles. a) note how small they are. b ) also see how far rearward they're mounted. They're way too small to house engines that would make sufficient power to push such a large craft--especially if bomb-laden--through the air. No way you'd fit a Daimler V12 in one of those. Add to that: the small surface area of where the nacelles are mounted to the body, in relation to their length + the engines' weight being focused at the opposite end; I'd say that would make this thing have a tendency for engine mount/nacelle failure if it were put through any vigorous maneuvers/high g loads.

But hey--the thing just looks dang cool. As movie props go, they get an A+ for effort. It certainly looks the part of some "evil Nazi secret weapon" from that era.

Although you're right its supposed to look like some sort of "evil nazi secret weapon" likely inspired by the Horten flying wings, from the looks of it, they probably copied more from the Northrop N9M flying. The nacelles design and placement look exactly like the ones mounted on that aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_N-9M

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow, nice variants in there. I wonder if any of those will be available state-side.

On a side note, I was looking through Hobby Search and Hobby Link and found the Yukikaze aircraft to be pretty nice as well, though they aren't prop driven.

Edited by Zx31
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The original design for the Nazi flying wing by Ron Cobb had 4 or even 5 larger engines. The sketches are in the "Best of Lucasfilm Archives" artbook.

edit: found one image

post-1187-1235650308_thumb.jpg

The story goes that it wound up being twin-engined in the end because they had budget problems, which George Lucas solved by snapping the wingtips off the test model and thus saving several tens of thousands of bucks. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...