Readers of a certain age may remember Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's sci-fi puppet shows-"Supercar", "Fireball xl5", "Stingray", "Thunderbirds" and "Captain Scarlet"-filmed, as the Andersons put it, in "Supermarionation". Those who remember "Captain Scarlet" in particular may find one of the pictures here eerily familiar. English Electric's Fighter Jet Take-Off Platform, a flying airfield, is not quite the Cloudbase from which the immortal captain operated. But it was intended, like its fictional counterpart, to launch and receive planes while itself airborne. It would have taken off and landed vertically in, say, a jungle clearing otherwise inaccessible to the aircraft piggybacking on it.
展开▼
