Flight Deck

Toys were much simpler in the old days. Forget Playstations, Robosapiens and Lego Mindstorms . . . In the early 70s, all kids wanted for Christmas was a Flight Deck from Airfix.

This toy consisted of a control panel that looked like it had been ripped straight out of the cockpit of a fighter plane, a scale plastic model aircraft carrier and a matching F4 Phantom warplane.

The TV adverts made it look like the plane could actually fly. But what it could do . . . just . . . was slide down a length of fishing line.

The joystick gave you some minor control over its positioning, and when it got to the carrier the plane would catch on a small piece of line stretched across the deck and a flag would pop up to indicate a successful landing.

Then you pulled the plane back up the fishing line, let it go and watched as it slid down again . . .

And when it had landed once more you left it alone and went off to play with something which was more fun. Like the empty cardboard box.

In 1975 Airfix returned to the drawing board and totally reinvented Flight Deck. The result was Super Flight Deck.

This time around they painted the aircraft bright yellow (so it looked less like an F4 Phantom and more like a 4p banana).

Presumably, this was to make the aircraft easier to see when it was whizzing across the living room and cut down on the number of Grandma casualties . . .