There's a scene in Star Wars A new Hope where the Millenium Falcon is being pursued and Luke and Han man giant cannons mounted in glass bubbles. With a bit of beginners luck [and the force], Luke manages to shoot down a Tie fighter.In his excitement, Luke turns to Han Solo and says:
"Got 'im, I got 'im!
And Han in his kind and nuturing way says:
"Great kid, Don't get cocky!
The Millenium Falcon's, cannons were based on actual gun turrets from WW II. Unlike the big padded chairs they had in Star Wars, the real turrets were tiny & cramped. Some were so small, there wasn't enough space for the gunner to wear a parachute. If you're strapped in a fishbowl and engaged in a dogfight, I'm guessing a parachute is the least of your problems.
Remco introduced it's B-52 Ball Turret Gun in 1961. The B-52 bomber was a huge workhorse during the second World War. It also had the distinction of being the plane that dropped America's nukes on Japan. Looking back this seems like a very strange choice for a toy but the kids of my generation thought nothing of it and obviously neither did Remco.
3 comments:
Thats a memory :) My parents gave me one of them for Xmas 1961
I shot down a lots of bad guys with it too
There used to be a toy company called Macco.. they did rifles, carbines, machine guns, morters and handgrenades (with a Greenie stickum cap under the handle so that when you threw one it landed with a bang. The guns all had removable magazines that could be loaded with little red bullets
You're thinking "B-29"...which was the bomber that dropped The Bombs on Japan. A B-52 is the 1950s Stratofortress multi-engine bomber still in use. Nice article on a great old toy, BTW.
The B-17 was a workhorse in WW II.
The B-29 dropped the atomic bombs on Japan.
The B-52 first flew in 1952 & the Air Force introduced it operationally in 1955.
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