A ponderance by: GF Willmetts. Has anyone every wondered how Scott Tracy gets out of Thunderbird One when he’s on a rescue? After all, there’s no sign of a ladder and the fuselage has to be at least eight feet up from the wing landing gear. Although quite what the Hood is standing on when taking photographs of the interior in ‘Trapped In The Sky’ isn’t revealed.

According to the 1965 ‘Thunderbirds Annual’, the exit does include a foldaway ladder but it’s a shame we never see it in the series even if Scott is never shown using it. Then again, we rarely see any of the brothers standing outside the two main Thunderbirds. The Japanese who do their own analysis suggests in some of their blueprints that Scott uses a rope pulley to get to the ground, their artist probably didn’t have access to the annual, but for such a futuristic flying machine that seems awfully primitive and definitely contradicts the story ’30 Minutes After Noon’ considering he had to carry exploding watches on-board. I did consider that he might have gotten in and out via the mobile control equipment lift but all evidence suggests that is located right at the back of the aircraft and not the way out in an emergency.



These thoughts started when I read ‘The Future Was F.A.B.: The Art Of Mike Trim’ where he states that the SHADO Mobiles in ‘UFO’ hadn’t been designed with cabin doors so they didn’t have to make anything full scale to have any of their crew standing by them. His earlier design did feature doors but were omitted in the final design. Since then, it started to niggle me and to see if any of the other vehicles used in the Century 21 shows had similar problems.

All the early shows, ‘Supercar’, ‘Fireball XL-5’ and ‘Stingray’, all demonstrate various access doors to get into their vehicles. If anything, they have a surfeit and used all of them at some time or other. It’s when you get to ‘Thunderbirds’ that problems arise.

The three main Thunderbirds have ready entrances for boarding on Tracy Island but none of these are practical when they arrive at a rescue. We should be grateful that Thunderbird Three never had a need to land on Earth away from Tracy Island as I doubt if the couch could come through the bottom unaided. Fortunately, it only made one live rescue with ‘The Imposters’ picking up the astronaut Elliott and he was returned to his space satellite. There was no indication how DJ Rick O’Shea and his engineer in ‘Ricochet’ were returned to Earth so presumably another convenient manned space satellite. Thunderbird One I’ve already discussed. I doubt if Virgil Tracy lowers the pod just to get out at a rescue so it is conceivable that there is a forward hatch or chute in front of the pod to avoid the ram-jets and vertical thrusters. There would have to be some entrance like that or how else did the Mighty Atom mouse get inside Thunderbird Two? Exit through the pods is a lot easier with an upper gangway and elevator, according to the same 1965 ‘Thunderbirds Annual’. Presumably, there is also some sort of stairway in case the electrics breakdown. Presumably, Gordon enters Thunderbird Four via the top airlock. Comparatively, access to Thunderbird Five is easy as Thunderbird Three locks into a tunnel port that makes it easier to bring on-board supplies. Let’s not even explore Thunderbird Two’s assortment of vehicles and absence of visible doors in anything other than the Mole.

With ‘Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons’, all the assorted Spectrum land vehicles are all equipped with doors. It’s when you inspect the Angel Interceptors you run into problems, especially as they have been known to land on the ground. With no wheeled undercarriage, at least not visible, and unlike the Thunderbirds, it doesn’t appear that they can do vertical take-off, one has to wonder how they take off from the ground. The 1968 ‘Captain Scarlet Annual’ points how the precision landing it needs on Cloudbase, where the entrance is through the base of the aircraft. I doubt if there’s sufficient support to let the pilot seat base to drop down unsupported, let alone rise up again. One can only surmise and hope that the canopy releases and she can get out that way. The height from the ground might not be a big problem getting down but might be a hazard getting up again. Oddly, it might have made more sense for emergency escape for the seat to drop through the bottom of the aircraft than the top, although if the plane is dropping, that might not be a good option. Although it’s never seen, one would suspect that there are supportable facilities on any ground-based Spectrum airbases to normally receive the Angel fleet should they need servicing.

Professor Ian MacClaine’s prototype car in ‘Joe 90’ has a small cabin and no ready access although I’ve always suspected that the glass windscreens open to get in and out. Consider the MacClaines fly the car over water, one can only hope it carries an emergency life raft. As it never flies higher than twelve feet off the ground, the chances of a fatal air collision would be considered fairly low.

Although I’ve discussed the problem of the SHADO Mobile above, there is still a question of two other vehicles. With Skydiver, it is known that the Sky One jet can land at an airport and indeed, replacements are used to allow servicing that cannot be done at sea. There is then the matter of just how does the pilot get out? Presumably, the access back to Diver would allow that and there is an undisclosed step or ladder to the ground. With undersea duty, it would be doubtful if the canopy would be raised short of an emergency bail-out. You would need the cabin airtight or risk damage at the depths it has dived to. Derek Meddings original blueprints shown in ‘21st Century Visions’ did suggest that there was a chair in the tunnel there although it looks like the only bit we really see is a slide slot which would reduce the size of the airlock. Presumably, if there is a sliding chair at the base, it’s something we never see in action. As these interiors were for a much smaller Skydiver and were later amended to ensure there was a chute instead, one can presume these were drastically modified at some stage. It would also have given more space for Sky One’s fuel tanks.

However, we haven’t seen Sky One’s landing gear or how high off the ground it is on a runway which can only add to the problems. I doubt if it’s a chute all the way to the cockpit or to get the pilot out, the entire submarine would have to resume launch position which is hardly dignified. In Ordeal’, Captain Lew Waterman is seen coming up through the chute but other than that Skydiver is horizontal, there is no indication of what propelled him in that direction. Likewise, there is no indication how easy it is for the two parts to reunite and how deep in the water, allowing for Sky One’s own buoyancy after flight. You would have thought regular fuel pick-ups would have jeopardised security. Not that Diver would need much fuel itself but Sky One is essentially a jet plane and would regularly burn up a lot of fuel and I would be surprised if, assuming Diver carries a reserve supply, that it could do more than two successive launches before meeting up with a fuel tanker.

Skydiver has a lot of size irregularities, especially as they are seen in ‘Sub-Smash’ and with rooms not otherwise seen suggesting Diver is a lot bigger inside than the models portray considering that it also has to have a twin hull. I mean, the two tier command section practically puts the comm in the conning tower which would make the missile escape tube that Nina Barry is supposed to escape through impossibly long. Likewise, with the pilot episode, has anyone ever given any thought to how Captain Peter Carlin carried the comatose alien back to land in Sky One? Granted, it’s not entirely impossible, presuming the alien is lodged in the entrance chute but it’s hardly practical.

Things are actually worse for the Moonbase Interceptors and I suspect their design also meant that they weren’t going to show the pilots standing next to their vehicles. Taking the chute slides down to the crater and get into the Interceptors, evacuate the air for take-off in under three minutes doesn’t leave a lot of time. One can only presume there are hidden airlocks and the crater is air free. As none of the astronauts wear spacesuits, it must have been assumed that if they were attacked by UFOs there would be little chance of rescue so no provision for rescue was ever made. It has been said that the Interceptor can dock with the Space Intruder Detector but I would have thought it unlikely that it would have sufficient fuel for a round trip and this is only for emergency use.

The Moon Shuttle does have a visible airlock, as seen in the episode ‘Close-Up’, as they install the telescope and repair the Space Intruder Detector in ‘The Man Who Came Back’. However, when docked on Moonbase, the only way to it is by doing an EVA, unless there is an unseen access tunnel within the landing rails. Technically, the Moon Shuttle is a passenger vessel and presumably carries some cargo on each flight. What would be of concern is should the landing rails be damaged then Moonbase would need an alternative type of spaceship, let alone survive an environment breech from such damage. One can only hope that there are emergency craft hidden in the Interceptor crater for quick evacuation. You wouldn’t want such a vehicle too far from Moonbase and the crater surely has to be the best protected. Saying that, if they do have Moon Shuttles there, how do they get them up to the Moonbase take-off rig as has happened in the episode ‘Conflict’?

Lastly on this whistle-stop tour of the Century 21 shows, one shouldn’t forget the Eagles from ‘Space: 1999’. Yes, they have an access port through the main cargo bay, however there is no airlock into space. Unless there is another proper airlock, it does seem a bit impractical to empty the bay before letting anyone out in space and let the temperature drop and freeze all the supplies in its cabin. In emergencies, the flight cabin can be released. As the only way out is the access to the cargo pod, one can only hope that they are either collected by another Eagle or land on an oxygen/nitrogen planet because there doesn’t appear to be any space (sic) for spare spacesuits let alone a proper airlock there, neither.

All of these points are something for you to ponder on as you get lost in the details of the various shows. In many respects, the directors were very careful to avoid showing things that would have had problems with the marionettes and humans, especially when it came to a matter of scale, or didn’t serve anything towards the plot. If anything, it was a demonstration of showing the event and let your imagination figure out how they got there. With the plot pace, that isn’t difficult to do. Stories on television might run at a lot faster pace these days but the same was true of the 60s, too. You tend to focus more on the more interesting than the boring bits. However, do you think any of the points I’ve raised above are boring or more like you’ve never considered? Even if you’re a trivia fan, have you ever considered these problems even as a mental exercise?

As you should be able to surmise from this article, I don’t really have much of an answer for all these problems other than the suggestions above. I suspect a lot of the time, we just accept that there is a solution that we haven’t seen and as it hasn’t interfered with the plot or cause us to wonder, we tend not to bother with some fine detail. However, this is me and I like to ponder. One can only hope model-makers don’t forget such things in the future.

© GF Willmetts 2011 opinions
please ask before borrowing

My thanks to Pauline Morgan for acting as my sounding board with this article.

For further reading:-

Thunderbirds Annual © 1965
Thunderbirds Annual © 1967
Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons Annual © 1967
Joe 90 Annual © 1968
Joe 90 Dossier © 1969

21st Century Visions by Derek Meddings (pub: Paper Tiger, 1993)
The Future Was F.A.B.: The Art Of Mike Trim by Anthony Taylor with Mike Trim
Thunderbirds Story Files # 1 – 6 (pub: Shueisha, 2006)

All series available on DVD and even on UTube but I suspect you have these already.