n 1975, Gerry Anderson, producer of some of the most popular U.K. science fiction television, brought Space 1999 to the screen. The story is set on Moonbase Alpha, a lunar research base situated near the storage grounds for all of the nuclear waste humans have accumulated over the decades. A new kind of magnetic radiation is discovered to be affecting the crew of Moonbase Alpha, and a sudden buildup of that radiation now threatens to blow up the entire waste dump in a massive nuclear chain reaction.
Koenig (as portrayed by Martin Landau) decides to disperse the waste stored on the moon to reduce the risk of a chain reaction. To do this he employs the base's Eagle ships, which use magnetic winches to lift and deposit the barrels of nuclear waste. Unfortunately, there is too little time. While the Eagles are still dispersing the waste, the dumps go up in a massive nuclear explosion of such force that the moon is knocked out of Earth's orbit, in an escape trajectory from the solar system.
The workhorse of Moonbase Alpha is the Eagle, a functional-looking spacecraft composed of a main lifting body with a central pod that can accommodate passengers or scientific equipment.
Product Enterprise, a U.K. toy company, has spent the past few years making the most meticulous replicas of science-fiction TV ships available to the cult collecting public, and its special-edition "die-cast metal" Eagle Freighter is more or less identical to its previously released Eagle Transporter, Rescue Eagle and Laboratory Eagle, with the exception of the central pod. The Transporter features a solid passenger pod. The Rescue Eagle features the same pod with red stripes. The Laboratory Eagle features a similar pod with extended doorway spaces. Each of these Eagles has starred in the TV show at some point.
Packed in a solid window box printed with paintings of the moonbase, the 12-inch Eagle is solidly seated in nested plastic forms, ensuring no damage to the vehicle inside. The Eagle is mostly white but is carefully painted with small highlight strips to resemble the real craft as closely as possible. The model features die-cast and plastic parts, which is the norm for die-cast models. The pods of the various models are interchangeable, each hooking to the superstructure.
The elegant space work machine
I have seen many different models of the Space 1999 Eagle. None I've seen holds a candle to this fine reproduction in quality of molding and construction.
The Eagle is made up of three main parts. The front and rear modules are connected by a spine of superstructure piping. The front flight section consists of a pointed egg-shaped command module connected to a "shoulder" section complete with two pods for the landing gear and hovering rockets. The rear engine section consists of four main rocket motors, two more hovering rockets, and side pods with landing gear. In the space between the two modules is an area under the superstructure to carry one of the various types of pod.
This model, the Freighter, carries an open pod with barrels that could store fuel or equipment or cargo. The pod has four of its own vertical hovering rockets and four landing feet.
Suspended from the bottom is a line connected to a magnetic winch, as seen in the first episode. Even the small details on this grappling winch are there, and nicely modeled. However, there is no way to retract the line; the grapple hangs permanently underneath the ship.
The paint shows wear and staining for a very realistic overall look. The one inaccuracy that I could see is that the cylindrical forms on the pod are painted gray, when in the TV show they were white like the rest of the ship.
One thing that this model does that I haven't seen in some others is show detail beneath the shoulder superstructure. A very nice addition.
One major drawback to this model is that while it claims to be a "die-cast" model, some parts are plastic, and while that isn't a problem in itself, in this case the one piece that really needed to be metal isn't—the spinal superstructure that holds the three die-cast modules together. As it is, this model is fairly heavy, and the spine that holds it all together is thin plastic tubing ... not the best design from a structural strength standpoint. With the spine being plastic, the whole ship warps and twists when lifted, and I'm not confident it wouldn't break if moved around carelessly.
