#Original thunderbird 2 series#

#Original thunderbird 2 series#

Unfortunately, the series was not a hit in Japan when it first aired in 1982, with only eighteen of its twenty-four episodes being broadcast. The series would follow the adventures of the agents of a futuristic global rescue service and their fleet of seventeen rescue vehicles, the Technoboyager craft. This was to be a twenty-four episode animated series by the name of Kagaku Kyūjo Tai Tekunoboijā, or Scientific Rescue Team Technoboyager. Uemura returned to the ideas he had devised while in consultation with Anderson and revised them into a concept that would essentially follow the format of Thunderbirds (a series he enjoyed and had homaged in previous works) as closely as he dare. With the Japanese release of Star Wars however came a sudden urgent need for science fiction on film and television – and one man was ready for it. The idea for the series would undergo much revision (including a new title Terrahawks: Order to Recapture Earth) as various ideas were thrown around, but ultimately the project went nowhere due to the belief among Japanese networks that science fiction was no longer marketable.

Aware that his shows had always been very popular in Japan, he met with producer Banjiro Uemura looking to produce a new animated science fiction television series Thunderhawks. While it certainly featured an organisation called International Rescue, a flotilla of futuristic rescue vehicles known as the Thunderbirds, and was even occasionally promoted using the same Thunderbirds logo as the original television show…it was clearly not of the same production stable as the classic Supermarionation series! Instead, Thunderbirds 2086 was a Japanese animated series that had started life as a different show entirely, before being rebranded as a new incarnation of Thunderbirds and then disappearing for good in the space of just over a decade!Īlthough very much a product of the 1980s the roots of the series can be traced back in 1977, to that post- Space:1999 period where Gerry Anderson could no longer look forward to commissions from ITC (following Lew Grade reaching ITV’s mandatory retirement age and his decision to move into film production). The current 260 ft long vehicle is a demonstrator for the upcoming ML 866 Aeroscraft model which will be 500 ft long and have 66-ton cargo capacity- engineered by Aeros to take off and land upright at maximum gross weight.Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, Thunderbirds fans would have occasionally found themselves faced with another television series also claiming to be an iteration of Thunderbirds. It is a new type of aircraft built with a suite of new technologies by Aeros.

The Aeroscraft is not a blimp, zeppelin or a hybrid vehicle. It is being hailed as the vertical transportation solution for the next 100 years. The real Thunderbird 2 created by Aeros’ Aviation Division, is in fac called “the Aeroscraft” and is a Rigid Variable Buoyancy Air Vehicle that is designed to control lift in all stages of air or ground operations, including the ability to offload cargo without re-ballasting. Thunderbird 2’s radical design has finally been adopted for a real aircraft – nearly 50 years after it’s original design by Derek Meddings for Gerry Anderson’s Thunderbirds.