Buccaneer B Special Appeared in "The Man from U.N.C.L.E."
Melanie and I were watching an episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.(season 1, episode 18, "The Mad, Mad Tea Party
Affair") when what
to my wondering eye should appear but a scene where a Buccaneer B Special was being used as a terrorist weapon delivery system. The model
was launched in a park a little ways from U.N.C.L.E. headquarters (cleverly hidden below Del Floria's Tailor Shop in
New York City), and then flown on a "suicide mission" to blow up Napoleon Solo, Illya Kuryakin, and their fellow fighters for truth,
justice, and the American way (or was that Superman's shtick?). Anyway, there was no indication that the controller
used by the pilot (who played the part of Uncle Max in The Sound of Music) utilized any sort of First Person View(FPV) system during the out-of-sight portion of the sortie, but I'm guessing
that the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) would take a pretty dim view of a fine vintage model airplane being
used in such a manner. Comically, a huge Motorola logo appears on the back of the R/C transmitter which (see video
below), by the way, must have been ahead of its time since it apparently used dual arbitrating antennas for signal integrity. Does
anyone recognize what that Motorola transmitter chassis really belonged to?
Buccaneer B Special Appeared in "The
Man from U.N.C.L.E."
Update:
The following was received from website visitor Doug B: "I was just watching the same Man from UNCLE episode and several things
got me digging on the web (where I found your entry). The 'wreckage' on the roof certainly shows 'Buccaneer B Special' in close-up, but the
model grass-launched from the Park is a smaller biplane. As an SF fan I was interested to see that the 'Laser Beam' defense deployed was
actually a two-handed 'blaster rifle' originally seen in 'Forbidden Planet' and now mounted upside-down. The Motorola device - I'm still
trying to identify - seems to have a wider box stuck on the front. This double antenna unit also appears in 'The Deadly Toys Affair'
(controlling an explosive sportster model!)."
See also "The Deadly Toys Affair" that featured control line airplanes at a boys' school in Switzerland.
