The small vehicles were always my favorite because it's what we could afford, yet I got a lot of the same playability as my cousins who had the larger vehicles.

I had the drednok air assault so that was my intro to the FANG and SKY HAWK and both were great, but better yet was the DevilFish. Like the FANG it was well armed, had great detail - adding hoses, engine covers, bouyancy, and those little unnecessary but much appreciated details HASBRO would add such as the double motors ability to swivel and lift. AND orange is my favorite color - so orange juice, dukes of hazard, and the devil fish were tops as a kid. I also love it's plausibility, albeit more as a Cobra vehicle. A swarm of devil-fish, with their numbers, speed, and manueverability could overwhelm an american battle cruiser like a flight of Zeros attacking a Battleship in WWII.

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Well it was dicussed by CabanaJack that the small size, helicopter, can be made. I wish I had some pics of it, but I dont. BUT, my Grandfather (who didnt complete his 9th grade year) learned the love of airplanes and flying. He (and I am not kidding), built his own one person helicopter, he put together his own airplane from premade parts, but this coper was completely created by him. Unfortantly I only have a few scant memories of watching him fly this thing, which I cherish even with only a couple different times. He was a perfectionist, and that thing was something. It didnt have a "finished", sleek look. But that thing was well built. Since my Grandfathers passing, my uncles, showing how dumb they are at times have refused to let it be put into an aviary museum (they asked if they could put it in it, but those idiots said no). Whats left of it is in the next dorr barn, which was my Grand Aunts, The asking thing happened like in 1991, so it was in the hangar and is not in the shape it once was.
I am sorry to start to gush on the details of this thing. I am just very pround and honored to have been his grandson and I miss him and love to tell others about him. So sorry to take this off topic for a bit.

Any way a small helicopter can be made, the armaments I am not sure of, I would guess with tech now, it could be done. But the basic flying fang could be made.

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Ah, my friend, I see what you mean, but please note that what you refer to are 1) Gyrocopters, not helicopters and 2) definitely not weapons platforms. I did expect that someone would disagree with me, but I expected them to refer to the small Bell and Sikorsky helicopters used in Korea. (You know, like the ones on M.A.S.H.)

Gyrocopters, like the ones you refer to, while small, are extremely unsuited for the role the fang is portrayed in, as they are not helicopters. They cannot hover, nor are they VTOL. They use foils at the rear of the aircraft to counter the rotational forces generated by the main rotor, and therefore must remain in forward motion. The two older examples you show had to be towed by another vehicle, like gliders, to get off the ground, and were limited as far as absolute altitude to tens of feet. Even the modern one has to take off in a manner similar to an ultralight plane. Gyrocopters are/ were extremely light, fragile, and unstable when their airspeed drops. They are extremely unsuited for use as weapon platforms, as the more weight you put on them, the bigger engine you have to put on, the more down force you have to generate, the higher their airspeed has to remain.

Don't mistake me, I'm not saying that small, single person aircraft aren't possible; I'm saying the single seat, open cockpit, ordnance carrying, turbine engine equipped combat helicopter the fang is portrayed as isn't. If it was, they'd have been zooming around the skies since World War One.

Your Grandfather sounds like he would have been a pleasure to know. Anyone that can build an aircraft by hand and from scratch sounds like they would be fascinating to be around.
Now, I don't doubt that he did build it, but what were it's dimensions? Is it twelve feet long from nose to tail? Is it a helicopter, or a gyrocopter? Are there any fixed air planes on it, to provide lift? Would it be able to carry a couple hundred pound bomb and a couple of hundred pounds of missiles and a hundred pounds of gun, plus either the ammunition for that gun or the energy generation gear for a laser, along with the pilot? What was it's max airspeed, and what was it's max altitude?

Again, please don't mistake me, I'm not saying that a single person aircraft isn't possible, I'm saying that the tiny, single person, open cockpit, ordnance carrying, turbine engine equipped combat helicopter that the Fang is portrayed as isn't. Even the smallest helicopters ever put into service dwarf the fang.

You clearly have a greater knowledge of aeronautics than us. I'm not arqueing with you here, but for clarification, I wasn't necessarily referring to a gyrocopter since I clearly don't have the same knowledge and understanding of the difference between heli and gyros as you do. Those pics were the best "light-weight" copters I could find. Which is what I thought you were disputing. But I know I have seen in person something similar to the FANG - with a very similar cockpit and a tail - but the motor was not visible and the stem leading up to the rotors was elongated and completly enclosed like those ugly early helicopters. Anyway, since I spend a lot of time in CT it very well could have been a sikorsky. But come to think of it I may have seen it at the Ford Museum in Detroit. I'll surf through old photos and see what I can find.

-CJack

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It's not my fave small, i.e., single-seat, vehicle in the line; but I've always preferred the FANG II to the I. The I has no panache or personality, precisely because it does look to be within the realm of plausibility. I like my bad-guy stuff to be all whacked-out and weird. Except for the Piranha, that's bad-ass all over the place.

If I use the criterion of 'what do I use to customize most with', I'd have to say Darth Maul's speeder is my fave small vehicle, lol. I must've bashed up like 10 of that bastid.

Sticking purely with Joe vehicles, I would honestly have to say my fave small vehicle is either the BUGG's jetskis, or the Command pod off the Hammerhead. I've only got one BUGG, but I must have like 10 of them jetskis; and 2 Hammerheads, but like 4 of the Command pods.

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I think i know the plane you're talking about, it looks similar to the butt-ugly planes Gazelle is making now, I believe it is a Sikorsky design, and I believe that if you were to look at it again, you'd see that is is considerably larger in scale than a Fang. Even Sikorsky's own VS 300 started off as this:(Note that it's chained to the ground, because they had no confidence that they could control it. the first revision had a bizarre flight characteristic; it couldn't fly in a straight line while flying forward. Eventually they realized that the reason was that the prop wash from the main rotor was cancelling out the effect of the tail rotor. That's Igor Sikorsky himself in the picture, by the by)

and ended up as this: This was the design he tried to sell to the U.S. Army in 1940.

What? No love for my favourite: the RAM? That is one kick-ass motorbike.

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No way to pick just one!

Joe: Bomb Disposal Unit, JUMP, Stalker's kayak, Killer Whale's recon sled.

Cobra: SNAKE (blue), FANG

Iron Grenadiers: Destro's hover skiff

Drednoks: Zartan's swamp skier

I'd probably go with the new RAM. It's only just this year I've been able to build a decent-sized squad of 'em (6 total), something I would have wished for since 1982. Funskool Street Hawks don't count, since they don't have the gatling and I don't use them for Joes.

In practical terms, the new one seats a variety of characters in vastly superior fashion when compared to the original. Plus it's just plain cool to see Hawk and co. riding around on motorcycles!

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If you had to go small Helo, then the Locust V1 outshines the Fang in my opinion. One in the cockpit, two can hold onto the landing carriage. Armament and with some ingenuity, a tow line if you're clever enough.

But personally, my all time favorite small vehicle is the DSRV minisub that attaches to the top of the Hammerhead. The colorscheme, the internal details, the external acoutrement, and the overall coolness of it screams both exploration, and defense.

If this steps up to mid-size vehicles, then that Devil Ray land/sub with the detachable halves ranks high up there. Totally versatile.

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http://www.yojoe.com/vehicles/90/locust/ <-- This one, Cap?

It's probably my all time favorite small vehicle. I'd also like to know more about this tow line. I'm not clever enough, I guess.

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Yeah, a tow line! If you're willing to sacrifice the lower bomb bay, and replace it with the winch assembly from any of those toy trucks and jeeps that may have one, you could fashion a reasonably cool tow line.

The trick is finding the right size spool and line from a truck with a winch.

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Brilliant.

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I'd say the RAM.
Bikes are neat and this one sports a gatling gun.

Wicked possibilities here.

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