Speaking of flying Joes

(Posting on the road from Lake Elsinore, California)
Did you know the GI Joe Irwin Helicopter from the 60s painthead era was based on a real aircraft? The Hiller Hornet was one of a family of simple and light helicopters built by Hiller aircraft in the 50s, with rotors driven not by an engine inside, but by ramjet engines in pods on the rotor tips. So not only is this aircraft the basis of the Irwin helicopter, but also the Adventure Team Turbocopter and, to a lesser extent, the AT Helicopter. Earlier this week, our vacation took us through the bay area where I visited the Hiller Museum, where I took these (and many more) pictures of the Hornet and it's near-kin. Hopefully these will be the basis of some articles I hope to write for the GI Joe Collector's Club newsletter.

A V-22 Osprey for Joe?

Today I've decided to talk about the scaling of Joe-sized vehicles. In more contemporary terms, this is a source of great controversy. Many fans of accurate military Joes have complained about vehicles sold as "1/6th scale" which are in fact a good deal smaller. Some of the more notorious are the 21st Century Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the Hasbro M8 armored car, and the 21st Century Little Bird. Most of these vehicles were 1/8th scale or smaller, and that made a lot of people unhappy.

But the fact is, most military (and civilian) vehicles are simply too large to be practical as mass-market items in true 1/6th scale. An F-22 Raptor scales over ten feet long. An M1A1 Abrams tank would be over five feet long and two feet wide. A Chinook cargo helicopter (including rotors) would be sixteen and half feet long! You aren't going to find these on the shelves at Wal-Mart any time soon. So something has to give. Either the vehicles have to be made smaller than scale, or they don't get made at all.

Fact is, shrunken vehicles are part of the great history of our hobby. Yet there's more than one way to shrink a vehicle, as we'll soon see. Other than just anal attention to scale, one of the major complaints about the not-quite 1/6th vehicles I mentioned above is that they didn't work well with figures. Pilots have to be jammed into the front of the Little Bird (which didn't even have room to include the pedals). The M8 really doesn't have room for a driver with legs attached, and troops don't fit well in the Bradley.

Fact is, near as I can tell, these vehicles are more or less scale, just not the scale people wanted. They were reduced, in all dimensions, to fit some arbitrary specification (to fit a box, or to be produced at some price point, or to fit a shelf, or to be shippable).

But that isn't the only way to do things. The other way, the better way I think, is "selective compression." Selective compression reduces dimensions individually with an eye to both the requirements and the intended use. For instance, if the goal is to make a vehicle fit in a box 48" long, the engine compartment might be reduced in size, leaving the cab area unchanged and large enough for a full-scale figure. Of the dimensions of the vehicle might all be reduced, and then the roof-height increased enough so the figure will fit.




When done well, one can hugely change the dimensions of a vehicle and still capture "look and feel" of the original. One classic example, even if it takes things to extremes, is the vintage Irwin Panther jet airplane seen below, along with the real-life Grumman Panther jet on which is it based.

Mind you, not a single dimension or line of the jet remains unchanged. In fact, a scale Panther jet would have a length and wing-span both over six feet! I don't have the dimensions of the Irwin Jet, but I'd guess it's under a third of that. Yet there is no doubt that one plane is based on the other. Irwin designers boiled the panther down to a form that preserved its essence, but that a child could pick-up and fly around the room. On top of that it would hold (just barely) a 1/6th GI Joe figure.



Let's try applying these principles to a modern military vehicle that seems very Joe-worthy, the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor. The Osprey is a cutting-edge hybrid vehicle combining some of the best features of a helicopter and a fixed-wing cargo airplane. It can fly rapidly and smoothly to a distant target, hover or land vertically to deploy or recover troops, and then fly rapidly back to base. It's an ambitious aircraft that's had it's share of problems, but if the bugs can be worked out its truly revolutionary.

Trouble is, for Joe purposes, it's just way too big. Each rotor alone would be over six-feet in diameter! The fuselage would be nearly six feet long. The span, including rotors, would be almost 14 feet! Young Hercules himself couldn't lift this monster and fly it around the room, even if he had a room big enough.

So, how to make a "kid friendly" version that would fit Joe and still be recognizable ? Well, my first move is to drop the V-22 entirely, and go to its predecessor, the experiment XV-15. Though the two vehicles look a lot alike, the XV-15 is already 20% smaller. Still not nearly small enough, but that 20% is something we don't have to cut.



Here's a 3-view drawing of the XV-15, courtesy of NASA. I used this (specifically, the top view) as the basis of my compression. My first move was to load it into my paint program and chop it into individual parts: cockpit, wings, rotors, tail-cone, tail surfaces, rotors.

Then I started eliminating anything that wasn't necessary. The straight sections of the fuselage fore and aft of the wing were cut out and discarded. The tail was still too long, so I shortened it a bit, and then shrunk the tail surfaces. The wings were made smaller as well. The engines weren't reduced quite as much, but the rotors were made much smaller. The original V-22 has a large cockpit for two flight crew sitting side by side, but I'm assuming the Joe version will have a single seat in the middle. Suddenly, things overall can be MUCH smaller.



What's left still has the recognizable flavor of the V-22, but it's a fraction of the size, I'm guessing about three-feet long. That's still big by kid-standards, but perhaps not impossibly so. (A Sigma-6 or 3 3/4" version would make a very attractive retail product.) The tail and wings would be removable for storage (or for the retail box).



Of course, by now the question that must be burning in all your brains is, "Steve, what does the Adventure Team version look like? Glad you asked...


What's the point of all this, designing a toy that will never be made for a line that no longer exists? I'm not sure, really, except that it's in the spirit of the toys I loved as a kid. Maybe I can't be ten again, and find this thing under my Christmas tree, but I can at least imagine...

Moving past Angry Joe Day

Well, Angry Joe Day 2006 was a great success. Thanks to everyone who participated, either by entering the contest, donating prizes, or just in spirit. The plan for now is, if Joe isn't back on retail shelves by March 1, 2007 (and right now, there are no prospects that he will be), then we'll do this again next year.

Remember, this isn't just me, this is all of you. Feel free to take Angry Joe Day and make it your own. Find your own ways to celebrate. Start your own contests, whatever. All I ask is that you keep it in the spirit of fun in which it is intended. We don't want to piss Hasbro off, we just want to remind them that there are people out here who still care, maybe make them smile, and hopefully one day have somebody in charge say, "what the heck, let's give it another try!"

I also wanted to take a moment to talk about "Tanker" Dave and his great 1/6th vehicle contest. If you haven't gone over to his site to check out the winners, you should. Dave asked me to help with the judging, and let me say that it was hard. The quality of all the entries was very good, and the top finishers were just amazing. Congrats to them all, and a big thanks to Dave for sponsoring the contest.

Well, the good thing about the AJD photo contest is that it saved me from a month of posting much of anything of my own. The bad thing is that it's been forever since I posted anything of my own. Time to change that. Several new items have arrived here lately.

Most significantly, I found some thrift-store trains for my friend Eric, who buys, sells, and restores toy and model trains. When I called him, Eric reported that he'd seen some Joes from an estate being unpacked at a place he knew, and that he was going back that day. He was a little vague about what they might be (he really doesn't know GI Joes), only that they were 12," old, and some had fuzz. He set off to the store to see what he could do.



I live 60 miles across a mountain range from Eric, so I couldn't just bop over there to see what he'd found, and in fact, I wasn't able to pick them up for about a week. What I found was a grocery bag with five, nude, fuzzhead Joes in various states of disrepair. Several had pretty good fuzz, one had intact kung-fu grip hands, and among them was a decent looking talking astronaut with a semi-working talk-box. There was also a bag with an assortment of uniform items (some AT, some home-made, some undetermined) a few accessories (the silver astronaut boots, a mystery tape-recorder), and a bag full of incomplete (but mostly dressed) Megos. I don't recall exactly what I ended up getting these all for after we were all done, but I think it was about $25!

You see two of the guys in the picture. The sweater and shirt are GI Joe from the bag. The pants are from the bag and may be from the same Jungle Survival set as the shirt, but they have a zipper, not a snap. I'm speculating that mom put the zipper in, since some of the other uniform items included were (nicely) home-made. The faded camo pants are childhood vintage from my spares-box. The boots are all modern.



This is may Talking Astronaut, pulled apart for cleaning and repair of the talker. I still haven't figured out how to remove those nasty stains on the body, but they shouldn't show when he's dressed (I need a white jumpsuit though). I seem to be making progress on repairing the talking mechanism using instructions I found here. I'm really looking forward to getting him fixed and back-together.

I am a total novice, by the way, at the business of cleaning and repairing old Joes, so any tips and advice would be appreciated.


Finally, while I was in "the big city" to pick up my new-old Joes, I hit a few Goodwill stores in search of 1/6th stuff. The first store (one where I almost find something) came up empty. The second turned up only a Storm-Shadow from the two-pack minus missing everything except his uniform. I was standing in line at the checkout when I happened to look up near the front of the store, where some baby strollers and similar items were displayed, and was amazed to see a Hasbro M8 Scout-car!

I jumped out of line and trotted over. It was missing the turret and cover for the crew compartment, but that was okay. It saved me from any temptation to keep it stock, and not convert it into an AT vehicle. Question was, how much? My wife was waiting in the car (working on her ALIAS novel on her laptop like a good writer with a deadline) and I'd already spent Joe money that day, so I didn't want to press my luck.

I rolled it around, looking for a price tag. Finally found it under the nose. $3.99! Score! Well, she might justifiably use the "where will you put it?" complaint, but price would not be an issue.



Oh, and let me leave you with one last bit of kitbashing. I was doing some reorganization today, and spotted this guy in a box looking 85% as you see him here. I barely remember throwing him together a few months back. He was just a bunch of stuff thrown together with no real plan. The major armor pieces are from a Hasbro 12" "Batman Forever, Mr Freeze" figure, the same one who provided the head for my infamouse "Der Governator" figure. The base figure is a Max Steel Ultra Action body with a HOF Storm Shadow (I think) head in a black jumpsuit of unknown origin. Tonight, I swapped the black combat boots he'd original been wearing for some sci-fi looking Max Steel boots, added the arm armor, and fiddled with his headgear (he's actually wearing an Action Man helmet over a Spy Troops hard mask over Storm Shadow's molded mask.

No, I can't tell you who or what he's supposed to be, but he looks kind of cool.

Angry Joe Day entries - Justin O'Hogan

Here are a few funnies from Justin O'Hogan. Says Justin:

"So just what has Joe been up to since the shelving of the line?
I was just wondering that when I came around a corner and here he was."












His original file name on the last picture speaks for itself:

this looks like a job for the kung fu grip.jpg

Angry Joe Day entries, Omar S

Five entries from Omar. His descriptions:

Pic 1- G.I.Joe, Land Adventurer

Pic 2- Joe's office, empty since he's been cancelled.
:(

Pic 3- joe's newest recruits

Pic 4- 12" RAH Breaker, the way he should've been done

Pic 5- My take on how G.I.Joe should come back.

Angry Joe Day Entry: Daniel Edwards

Here's the first entry in our "Angry Joe Day" photo contest. Says Daniel about the picture:

"I call it "Feedin' Time!" The AT Joes are disposing of the Sigma Six figure while at the same time checking out all of the cool equipment."

Thanks, Daniel, for getting our contest off to a great start.

30th Joe Updated

(I posted this message with an error that I've since corrected. I said this was a 35th anniversary Joe, which didn't sound right. Checking, I see that It was a 30th anniverary Joe, and have made the correction. These were released before I got back into collecting, and I don't even remember seeing one at retail.)

First of all, if you've a mind, scoot over to my "public" writing blog and check out the newly-unveiled cover of my upcoming MechWarrior book, "Trial by Chaos."

And we'll get back to rocket Joe shortly. But first...

Over on the Sandbox, Patrick Stanton posted some photos of his transplant of a 50th Anniversary Target Joe (just to be clear, "50th" in this case is the 50th Anniversary of WWII, not of Joe) head onto a BBi 3.5 body.



This is my own transplant, don't a month or so back, of a 30th Anniversary (of Joe, not WWII, but essentially the same head and body as the 50th) head onto a Mattel Max Steel "Ultra Action" body. I like this body a lot. It's rugged, reasonably posable (it has double jointed elbows and knees, and unlike a standard Max body, the ankles rotate)body that takes a beating and holds poses well. On the down-side it has a molded-in wrist communicator, a non-standard neck mount, and large, rather unrealistic hands. But over all, I nice body, and I've had good luck collecting lots of them in thrift stores over the last couple years.

As it turns out, the non-standard head-mount on the Max is very similar to the one used on the 30th Joe. As I recall, all I had to do was enlarge the hold in the base of the head to fit the Max neck-post.

The uniform and accessories here are 40th Anniversary Joe. The spare sailor uniform was just what I happened to have on hand, so I put it on for fit. The snap-cuffs neatly hide the wrist gizmo, and unlike the BBI body, the Max arms aren't too-long for the sleeves on a vintage/TC/40th uniform. The cuffs were tight, but they fit, and the boots are loose (an easy fix, and not a problem at all for display). Overall, I thought the fit of the uniform was surprisingly good.


Now for the good, part. This Joe can do things that no vintage-style Joe ever could.

I confess, even as a child, I was never a fan of the vintage-style body. My first Joe had a stress crack when I got it home from the store. It was frustrating that he couldn't kneel or sit properly. And don't get me started on those "nose-picker" hands. I always thought they looked terrible, and what good is a soldier who can't hold his gun?

As a kid, Captain Action took over most of Joes uniforms and gear (with our two paint-head Joes becoming his supporting players). At least CA could hold a gun.

Well, so can my improved 30th Joe. He can also kneel and crouch and sit.



Of course, from this Joe's perspective, increased flexibility may not always be a good thing.

Swab that deck, sailor!

Wall of interest

Nothing too exciting today. Just a little slice-of-life from here in my office at Hangar 18.

One consequence of being a writer is that you sometimes spend months at a time chained to your computer, staring at the same wall. This, is my wall.

I've just spent the last few days working in the office, and among other things, I added the two white shelves to the left (the longer white shelf above has been there since I moved in.

My major objective here, is that if I have to stare at a wall, it should at least be an interesting wall, something that will stimulate creativity. As such, there are quite a variety of odds-and-ends in the picture, many of them 1/6th related.

You can see several of my custom AT vehicles, the radio-controlled Escape Car 2 up and right, the LMUTT to the left of that, the radio-controlled H2 Hummer top and center, an AT motorcycle and scooter to the left of that. That's my repainted and modified Schwimmenwagen below the motorcycles. The purple New Bright New Beetle is a recent thrift-store find. I recently got a new remote for it (ordered directly from New Bright for $10 plus shipping) and plan to paint it white with Herbie stripes and numbers to match our 1:1 Herbie.

Also on the top shelf, you can see the 1/6th gold Cylon commander from Battlestar Galactica.

The lower white shelf has a mix of Timeless, 40th, and vintage figures and coffin boxes. The monitor for my computer is located directly under the shelf. Behind it is a vintage Estes Galactica "Viper" flying model rocket. It flies well, and has three or four flights to its record.

The smaller, brown, bookshelf has a variety of stuff: CDs, reference books, copies of some of my published work. There's also a collection of alien items on top (this is Hangar 18 after all!)

Some of the other items are connected to my published work. There are a pair of Conan action figures on the third shelf down (I wrote three Age of Conan novels, now in stores) and there are a couple of small Transformers figures above that (including Ratchet, who was featured in a story I wrote for the anthology, Transformers Legends).

Like I said, it's a wall, but at least it's not a boring wall.