Toys from the Past: #17 G.I. JOE – SKY HAWK (1984 and 1990)

Saturday, May 14, 2011

#17 G.I. JOE – SKY HAWK (1984 and 1990)

The Sky Hawk V.T.O.L. (Vertical Take Off and Landing) was one of the first non-real vehicles of the G.I.Joe collection. In the previous years, all vehicles were adapted from real military vehicles. To my knowledge, this mixture of jetplane and helicopter does not exist. Theoretically, or according to its "blueprints", the turbofans located at the top of the plane behind the cabin thrust the plane to take off vertically, and, once in the air, the engines rotates to displace the plane horizontally. The idea is pretty cool, because so a machine would be very fast, and could turn and maniobrate in very short distances.

The toy was part of the third american wave and was also available in Europe. In other countries (Brazil, Argentina and Japan) was also sold with slight different shades of green. In this picture, you can see the turbofans and the tail fins (by the way, the side ones are placed in the wrong side). The cabin is very small, and has only capacity for one figure, preferably an early one, that are a little smaller. The seat has a peg to fix the figure to it, and when the cockpit is closed, the figure is "trapped" by the knees, and does not move, no matter how many loops it flies. This picture shows the front side of the plane , with the twin cannons that can be turned to one side or the other. The stickers have a good quality. In this next picture, you can see the control panel, which is also the trap hat ties the figure by its knees. Years later (in 1990), the same toy was released with a "chrome" layer, and black parts (cabin, engines, tails...) for the Sky Patrol section of the G.I.Joe team. This vehicles are difficult to find in good shape, because the chrome layer could fall apart by playing. The box displays a different (but very similar) artwork with different colours. I do not own this second version loose, and therefore I can only display the following pictures from my collection. From the 4 Sky Patrol vehicles, this one was the only which did not change its original name, because it already started with the word "sky". The HAVOC became Sky HAVOC, the Night Raven was renamed Sky Raven, and the Sharc, Sky Sharc.