More Kit Bashing and more Models in Thunderbirds 

Those model makers were true artists. They made some wonderful stuff for those shows, loved them.

This video shows the ingenuity and shear imagination of the model makers working on Thunderbirds under the outstanding guidance of the brilliant Derek Meddings which is beyond anything today. Great video. 👌👍👏

Superb!! Fabulous detecting and lovely graphics to show where each section of a kit was placed. Such a fun series and you have put so much work into this topic. So grateful and it's a real joy to watch. My brother and I spent so many happy hours trying to spot as many kit parts as possible in Thunderbirds. As avid model makers and enthusiasts, it was as much fun as enjoying the great story lines and filming. I was definitely born far too late!! I would have thrived as a model maker for these shows. Sad that so many of these wonderful skills and the pure craftsmanship and talent involved will never be used again. CGI and AI can be amazing.....but it often isn't and in certain cases, it's just not the same in terms of the atmosphere created. One thing we always wondered about, was how did they stop each model just melting from the heat of those rocket motors!? The plastic kit 'jet exhausts' of those fighters, must have been very carefully protected from the flame from the rockets used and would have required multiple attempts to get a shot right. How on earth the plastic kit parts didn't just melt, I would love to know! Thanks again.😊

on the UN 10 fighter plane the canopy looks like its from the Aurora F-4D skyray, excellent video ty!

Fascinating insight into the creation of aircraft on Gerry Andersons TV shows , especially Thunderbirds 👍

Superb detective work, excellent

I always wanted a helijet model

Your research on these videos, and also the way you show how the parts fit together on screen, is remarkable!

Imagine being the model shop nearest to thes thunderbirds production team. They must have wondered what sort of customer wanted 1/48 jet fighter kits and 1/72 railway girder bridges in such quantities. The fun that must have been had just researching the kits to see what parts could be repurposed.

Your enthusiasm shines through with your parting words. I can still sit and watch Thunderbirds, decades on from watching for the first time. I still get the same excitement, from every explosion to the car chases.... They built legends and legacies.

It's also interesting to see how kit decals were used. On the TX-204, you will see the tail fin decal for a USAF Thunderbird F-84F, upside down. Also upside down US insignia.

Now every Tuesday at 7.55pm on Talking Pictures.

Really enjoy your geeking out.

Goodness me, what a trip down memory lane. Super stuff. Thank you.

The blue planes appear to be X-15 fuselages with starfighter canopies & saab draken fins!

Brings back memories. Some Modern aircraft look the same now days with a few different parts. Great stuff. 🙂👍

You have a great eye for details. I don't know why, but I always assumed the models used in these shows were much, much bigger.

Another interesting production, thank you and well done.

Excellent fun - I have no idea how you manage to keep spotting these kits. Great to have Thunderbirds back on UK TV - it will always be fantastic.

Tour de force. Such a lot of hard work, research and time went into this. One aircraft in question is the RTL-2 Rocket Transporters from The Cham Cham. Obviously there has to a bit of Handley Page Victor in there surely.

Some fantastic research there. I imagine a lot of those kits have long since disappeared, so working it out must have been doubly difficult. I 3D modelled the main TB machines along with some oddball stuff like the Elevator car, fire engines and ambulance, so I appreciate the complexity and the skill of the modellers.

Being 70 I am of the Airfix generation so I enjoy this kind of thing, I enjoyed models as a kid and these days I make up sets to give away to less well off families. Scifi is very poorly served these days and sadly 'pocket money' models are not in vogue these days (too much high mark-up 'merchandising' dross and 'chain stores' that seek to minimise staff time) so making your own sci-fi craft is somewhat uphill. I have a few old Heller Cadet Frelon helicopters (1:96 I think) that make a very handy 'heli-jet for 1:72nd scale but those are long out of production. The old Airfix SR 71 jet-rocket plane made a good basis for a futuristic 'fighter' if you replaced the wing tip missiles with 'blasters'. Hopefully one of the smaller 3d-printing outfits will see the opening and make some generic sci fi craft available at reasonable cost and I of course will further kit-bash those!

A most amazing video! You truly impress me all the way around.

Another fascinating video. Thank you!

I just found your channel and I’m really enjoying the videos. I’m currently working on the thunderbird2 from aoshima on my channel and I’ve really become fond of the designs used in the show.

Thanks Matt. Great video.

Your dedication is wonderful. Thanks for a superb insight into the Thunderbirds world.

Very interesting! I would have loved the job of kit-bashing models of exciting machines. One small correction. The "drop tank" under the B-58 didn't just contain fuel: it also held the nuclear weapon! There was a plan to put passengers in it instead; this never came off.

Excellent video - so many ideas that confirm what I did when younger were not so bad.

Kitbash heaven.

amazing stuff,thank you for your hard work.

The B-58 is one of my favorite Cold War aircraft, and I was very disappointed that there was no good 1/72 scale kit of this plane available back in the day. The bigger Lindbergh kit was 1/64th, which as WAY too big to fit my collection since becoming a "scale purist" around age 13. I never considered the Aurora kit, assuming it to be another oddball "box scale." But if I had known it was a VERY close 1/75th scale, I could have lived with that, and had one in my collection long before the Testors/Italieri kit came out in 1984 - about 11 years after swearing my fealty to 1/72nd scale. Thanks for doing all the research, and sharing this with us! (As a sidebar, I don't know if you've herd, but Airfix just reissued their SRN1 Hovercraft kit! I already have mine on order with my local hobby shop!)

Thanks for another great video! At 8.05 in the video the blue Navy fighters fuselages are actually X15 kits rather than starfighters. May be Aurora kits as they were out at the time and were 1/48 too. Revell's kit at that time was a smaller scale (1/64) so may be too small going by the launch rail (girder bridge parts again!) . I also believe the majority of the 1/48 Starfighter kits used are Lindberg rather than Hawk kits as the Lindberg kits have a very distinctive more rectangular canopy that can certainly be seen in the Zombite and Air Sea Rescue aircaft. Hustler parts appear all over the Anderson series. In 'The Cham Cham' the red jet by the side of the RTL2 hanger looks like a small Revell 1/72 Saab Draken with either Revell (1/91) or Monogram (1/121) B58 engines placed at the mid section of each wing. The model shop has also added two Draken tail fins rather than the usual one to make it look more futuristic. In 'The Imposters' a fast moving helijet is seen during the search scene. This looks to be made from two Revell 1/48 Sikorsky H-19 helicopters bodies glued back to back with Huster engines and Starfighter tail planes. The B58 Huster kit is also used in Fireball XL5 as an alien ship in 'Invasion Earth' and as the SL6 airliner in 'Space City Special'. Of course in Stingray X-20's submarine is a Revell 1/40 X5 with Aurora 1/76 B58 Hustler engine pods. The Stingray Arrowhead fighter is made from two Aurora 1/48 Freedom Fighters. The model is also seen a few times in Thunderbirds with an Aurora B58 weapons pod attached underneath the fuselage (Duchess Assignment and as a toy in Chip's bedroom in Security Hazard) In 'Sea of Oil' the alien sub is just a Revell F102 Delta Dagger with upside down wings and part of a rocket model added to the rear as an engine. Look forward to your next video. All the best!

Awesome video! Thanks for sharing 👍

Awesome work! Thanks so much!

The small tail stabilisers on the Heli-Jet look like helicopter stub wings, possibly an AH-1 Cobra. The vertical tail had the shape of an F4 Phantom tail, but I bow to your research and greater insights. I must admit I thought I had watched every Thunderbirds episode at the time, but I don't remember the half of these cool aircraft. Must have too busy doing my school homework😉😇 Thanks so much for doing all this.

Another fabulous video - thank you so much for all your efforts!

Have recently started watching the series again. Was expecting it to be dated and cheesy and not like I remembered. However, was surprised at how good the stories were and you get used to the puppets and special effects. Impressive for the time. This video though was fascinating and thanks for doing it. Really like the graphics and explanations. 👍

Thank you for this!

I think kit bashing is a skill some can do, some find it hard. Thanks for sharing this. I did make a Red Arrow once myself for a sci-fi Thunderbirds model railway (vid on my channel if interested) and knew about the Hustler engines but elected to use some missiles I had and drop tanks. Cut the ends off and that worked pretty well. Red Arrow 3 crashed again by the way lol.

Great video! A fascinating look at the designs. You certainly did a lot of research, must have taken a time to do all that. Love that Helijet, surprising what went into that. Keep up the good work, looking forward to the future video on the ground vehicles. Thank you.

I love your work!!!

Fascinating video I thought most of the models were scratch built using a few parts from kits but you have shown many were cobbled together from kits. I knew they bought tons of kits like the girder bridge and lots of lego was used. I will have to watch the other video you have made.

Well done sir! The research and the visuals overlaying the outlines of the models used are a fantastic way to understand what was done to create each model. If you should ever do another and can reach all the way back to the "Fireball XL-5" series I'd love to know what went into the vertical landing "SL06" transport. Looks like most of a B-58 with a canard plus the engines and weapons pod repositioned.

Another excellent video, complaetely fascinating detective work. If I may point out theat there were two F-104 kits that where available in 1/48 scale at the time. The Hawk F-104 represents production aircaft, but the Lindberg kit is of the XF-104 which is quite a noticably different airframe. Both of these kits can be identified in various Effects models and the XF-104s decals crop up as they are the "Buzz Code" Fg-786.

The rear projection on the heavy helijet look like they either come from a Piasecki twin rotor helicopter kit or perhaps a Bristol Belvedere...

Wonderful vid. Thank you.

I'm 90% certain the small cranked down stub wings on the Heli-Jet are from the Airfix of Bristol Belvedere.

That was great, nice detective work. One thing -- he aircraft is, was and is always the Bf 109. Thank you

Excellent video!

Very interesting!

Another great video - thanks! Id like to build a number of the plane subjects but the problem is that the B-58 donor kits were all made in scale sizes no longer used / available today! Although wings can be fabricated, we need an enterprising Anderfan to be able to 3d model the engines and then offer prints in the appropriate scales......?

Another fantastic video, I wonder if the Airfix Drakken is still available?,I wouldn't mind having a go at building a small diorama, based on the Red Arrow launch-bay, when I can find the time, anyway, thanks for sharing, take care, all the best from Scotland, Stephen.

anyone got any idea how they did the TX 204? I love that plane so much and would love to try kitbashing one together, but I don't know where to start!

GREAT VIDEO SIR,THE BAD GUYS FIGHTERS WITH THE RINGS ON THE END COULD BE FROM AIRFIX HOVERCRAFT KITS. TAKE CARE AND HAVE A GREAT WEEK.

Blue and white fighters in The Imposters look like they could be X-15 fuselages

The tail on Fireflash looks to me very much like a slightly altered Victor tail.

The planes in 'The Imposters' (8:07) are US Navy and JSDFN coming under the World Navy Banner,

Hey Matt, i saw the Navy fighter painted blue and white kinda flat one is from an X-15

0Drakens used may have been the Revell 1/72 kit or possibly the ADAMS (lindberg 1/48 scale one which also featured a large underfuselage spring loaded rocket launcher

B52’s had 4 pods of 2 jet engines each. 8 engine total.

They missed a trick back in the day, they could have made their bashing recipes public in exchange from a consideration of Revell et alia. Or maybe that would have spoiled the magic

Revealing, but for me it's painful seeing beautiful planes bastardised and turned into Frankenstein creations. As a child I didn't mind at all 😅

Very good Sir, though if you ever do yet another kit bashing vid, could it focus on some of my favorite guest vehicles like the Seascape Drilling rig and crablogger?

Mil 24 helicopter