If you were a kid growing up in the 1970s, who didn't want their own Mattel Vertibird! I had one back in 1972 (along with an Amazing Dareplane Stunter) with the spacecraft, astronaut and life raft to boot. It's been long destroyed but ever since I've always wanted another one.Now I've got one!Peter Hirschberg has written a free Vertibird simulator for the Windows platform as an exercise in OpenGL. GET IT! As soon as I installed I felt I was back in 1972 - it even comes with a cheesy soundtrack (which you can turn off). As soon as I applied power, the memories came flooding back.And what's better about this Virtual Vertibird is that you can change views and fly it from the "cockpit" as well as see a chase view. You can still pickup the spacecraft and astronaut with the hook too.Too much! Go grab it and practice your own Apollo 17 recovery!!!http://www.peterhirschberg.com/vertisim/index.html

you can get them, I bought one of them for one of my boys, it is great and a lot of fun.

Damn you Mark! Now I have a new sim to fly. I used to have one of these when I was kid. Thanks

That's excellent! I had one of those when I was a kid. I wonder if they even make them anymore? My guess is the safety police outlawed them (exposed rotor and all ya know).Dave

That is Awesome!! Thanks for the link, brings back many 70's memories.It actually reminds me of the first time I remember getting into Trouble. My Cousin had one, and wouldn't let me play with it :( I was about 3-4 so 1974 or 1975 abouts, He left the room for a few seconds, and I jumped on the controls. Next thing I knew I had people standing around me yelling not to break his new expensive toy. Those things were high tech in the early 70'sHeres a link to a "Mega Force" Vertibird.They actually made toys from the God Awfull movie?http://www.whirlybirdcentral.com/Merchant2...Category_Code=VAl

>If you were a kid growing up in the 1970s, I grew up in the 40s/50s -- never even heard of Mattel!! :)But I reckon my 30+ year old son would like to be able to fly a real THUNDERBIRDS machine -- he used to love that programme! :)Barry

If you live in the UK, you can get a variant of it from Argos, page 1062, "Chopper Patrol",

Thanks a lot for the info. Great site.

I had just been talking about how much I loved that toy when I was growing up. Then I did see one being advertised. They are back again just cant remember where I saw it. Great idea for the PC though.Andrew

How cool is that? LOVED the Vertibird! Now maybe Mattel will bring back Major Matt Mason and my big favorite, the XRG-1 re-entry glider!(They could make a fortune on us mid-lifer's living out our second childhood!)http://cs-people.bu.edu/pgeddes/flightsim/signature2.jpg

Got the Vertibird Sim - what a good piece of fun, and it evokes such great memories.Don't remember the real thing being as difficult to fly as this sim though.... :-) Toni.

I didn't have one of those, but I did have a similar toy in the late 60's based on an ordinary ballon with a 'lunar lander' style base, and you used a steerable fan to fly it like an RC airship. The fan produced some kind of hollow cone shaped air stream that allowed you to control the 'spaceship' surprisingly well even 3 or 4 feet away (with practice). Does anyone remember that, and what it was called?I would like to see a physics treatise on how objects can be suspended and made to hover in a nearly horizontal jet of air like that.

as I said, you can get them readily at a lot of places, here is where I got mine.http://www.hobby-warehouse.com/jastoyseares.htmlthen the second one I got at my local hobby supply store.

I think it's funny that the picture in the ad shows the DAD playing with the toy and the son watching!