In anticipation of the FS-1's imminent release I thought I'd share some detail photos and observations with you.

The pilot seats seem to represent the seats used in the 3rd and/or 4th season. The second season seats had a large metal box on the top of the seat back (Pics 1 & 2). Sometime later those boxes were removed (Pic 3).

The main instrument panel varies not just from season to season, but from episode to episode. Pic 4 is from the 2nd season episode "The Monster's Web. Pic 5 is from "Deadly Creature Below", also a season 2 episode - gotta love that Irwin Allen continuity, but it gets worse!

The panel can even vary between scenes in the same episode, in this case "Deadly Creature Below". In Pic 5 note the instrumentation and the window size in the black area above the grey instrument panel. Compare that to the view out of the main windows in Pic 1 - the black area with it's instruments is gone and the windows are much larger.

I have 3 Pics of the lights on the joystick panel - 2, 6, & 10 (which also has a nice shot of the seat belts).

Pic 8 is a nice shot of the Reactor Wall (based in part on this screencap I think that instead of tan for the smooth wall sections I'm going to go with FS 36440, Lt Gull Grey).

Pic 9 is shows the stowage area under the bunk without it's door as well as the location of the port rear crew seat and the rear wall instrument panel.

Details of the lower hatch are shown in Pic 10.

Finally, Pic 11 shows the rear instrument panel along with a small panel on the reactor wall.

I can hardly wait to start building my Flying Sub, hopefully I'll be doing so in about a week.

Please feel free to explore my PhotoBucket albums:
http://s223.photobucket.com/albums/dd222/idMonster/
and I hope you folks will share your photo resources and observations as well!

Gordon

Pics, Part 2

If you have not checked it out yet,take a look at my Blog.alex


http://falcondesigns.blogspot.com/

In the observation category ...

Notice in your first email's thumbnail views of the front console (last two thumbnails on the right) that they're very different in how the panels are laid out. This is pretty typical - that console layout changes not only between episodes, but within the same episode, and even during the same flight!

The rear wall console changes configuration pretty regularly, even going so far as to be completely absent during some episodes. (Ditto for the two small consoles below the fusion wall.)

The storage area below the bunk sometimes has doors as molded into the kit, sometimes not.

The boxes on the backs of the chairs are sometimes at the top and sometimes at the bottom (thanks to Alexander for noticing that one).

There are a million more pieces of (now) useless knowledge I have after recently doing some serious research on the interior.

If you have not checked it out yet,take a look at my Blog.alex


http://falcondesigns.blogspot.com/

Oh, I've been there and I'm looking forward to future entries!

Gordon

(somehow Pic 11 never got uploaded)

In the observation category ...

There are a million more pieces of (now) useless knowledge I have after recently doing some serious research on the interior.

I just wanted to say thanks for all of your hard work and the cool stuff you've been producing for us!

Gordon

here's my contribution

http://www.freewebs.com/scifivehiclevault/apps/photos/album.jsp?albumID=3510374

I also noticed that the pilot seats are slightly behind the support beams. Of course everything in the Irwin Allen Universe seems to defy space and time.

The flying sub interior evolved. At first there was no radio console on the back wall. After it quickly appeared, then more controls appeared under the reactor wall. At some point the bunk and diving gear stowage disappeared and was replaced by another reactor wall.
Most kits portray the corrugated walls with squared corrugations. I don't know how well this photo will reproduce, but the corrugations were in fact rounded, like fiberglass roofing sheets. They seem to have been comprised of a clear plastic topcoat with a silver mesh underneath and a dark backing under that. Whatever this material was, it shows up all over various sets on Voyage. You can get perfect round corrugated styrene at hobby shops, if you're thinking of superdetailing your interior.
While putting away Christmas decorations this year, I noticed we had some small led candles. They stand about an inch tall and a half and run off 3 volt button batteries. I switched one on and, lo! - a nice white led that flickers and varies in brightness as it flickers. A couple of these would be perfect behind the reactor wall and I can't imagine they cost more than a dollar or so apiece.
Edit: Oh, and thanks for posting those detail photos! Greatly appreciated. And here's another photo: you can just barely see the rounded corrugations on one wall toward the center of the photo of what remains of the flying sub.

Great blog, Falcon!!!:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

Wayne

As Dr. Smith would undoubtably have said, "Oh, what a tragic, ignomineous end". If memory serves, the 2001 Discovery ended up in much the same state.

Thanks for the photos Great stuff!

Thanks for the great pictures,Gordon.alex

you can see the view port stacked on top of the rubble facing upwards with the paint shop 2nd fllor windows in the back ground, it must have been stored close to where the Jupiter 2 full size mock up was parked before demalition.

Kind of looks like they probably dismantled the set when it wasn't in use, and maybe some of the component pieces that lit up were removed for use on other tv and movie productions. I remember some of the light-up fancy set pieces from the control room had some mileage on them from The Fly (maybe it was in Hedison's contract the console came with him) and another production prior.

I might be remembering this wrong, but if I remember right, I think Fox (?) did a few Irwin Allen productions around the same time, and I think Batman was filming on the same lot at the same time (?) so it wouldn't be too much of a shock if light-up set pieces went from one production from the other and back, or sometimes not at all.

The Batman batcave set always seemed to have a lot of light-up crap in it, I wouldn't be surprised if some of it hadn't been purloined or borrowed off Voyage...Or they could have made a trip to the Jupiter II set...

Probably whenever they reassembled the Flying Sub set, the people setting it back up may or may not have been the same people that broke it down prior, and may or may not have taken photos or sketches to use as reminders or remembered how it had been last set-up along with any add-on or removable equipment (like how they normally snap photos of actors/ costumes/ sets/ etc. nowadays for continuity.).

I think sometimes we might make the error of assuming the way we'd do something today, was the way they did things back then with a meticulous attention to detail. Sort of like trying to nail down the exact color of the Seaview during the tv productions in the latter years. If one of the models got banged up, they'd just spray it, seemingly with whatever can of whatever color seemed to be handy to patch it. "They'll never notice (on the tv screen)" was probably a catch-phrase. The studio was cranking these things out one after the other, so probably some days the emphasis was on quantity, not quality, the last season's scripts can certainly attest to that...

Just a guess.

A lot of the light up stuff in the IA and Batman sets came from obsolete B205 and B220 computers and air traffic control radar systems. You can see the equipment all over TV shows and movies.

Judging from the girder color on the disassembled FS set, that photo was taken after the "City Beneath the Sea" tv-movie.

It is funny, the seats from "Planet of the Apes" appeared in LOTG, and in B5. Probably in other productions also, but I don't ever remember seeing the FS seats in anything else. Which is funny, because 20th Century Fox, like every other studio reused most everything.

David.

Judging by the red peeling paint. it was left over from CBTS.

While putting away Christmas decorations this year, I noticed we had some small led candles. They stand about an inch tall and a half and run off 3 volt button batteries. I switched one on and, lo! - a nice white led that flickers and varies in brightness as it flickers. A couple of these would be perfect behind the reactor wall and I can't imagine they cost more than a dollar or so apiece.


that is such a cool idea...thanks
:woohoo:

another detail shot:

http://bellsouthpwp.net/s/t/steveplj2/cap/lis0006.jpg

I remember that episode.

Shows the interior was used before Voyage Season 2.

I never noticed how small that rear hatch was until 6'-4" Guy Williams was standing next to it.
It is my good fortune to have personally known one of the 20th Century prop builders who worked on that set, as well as Planet Of The Apes, LIS, In Like Flynt, etc. From his own first-person account regarding the Flying Sub set, "It was exactly like the toy you could buy in the store, except that the walls were 'wild' so that they could film from different angles. It was really kinda claustrophobic when all the walls were put up, but not as much as the Space Pod and the Diving Bell, which were REALLY claustrophobic". :)

Pardon me for de-lurking, but good gosh, that pic (the Guy Williams one) explains SO MUCH about why the interior set of the Flying Sub doesn't conform with the exterior, it seems to have been build from mostly stock existing parts, not from scratch!

Yikes. :)

Gotta give the man credit for making that budget stretch, huh?

Makes me wonder why the Spindrift didn't get 'repurposed' for 'City Beneath the Sea' like just about every other IA effects prop. Or did it?

I'm surprised nobody's ever mentioned how the Seaview (including the NIMR dock!) was 'borrowed' for the first Flint movie.

So back to the beloved FS-1. Anybody gonna take that impressive interior and make a diorama of the actual filming set? Be a good way to use the parts if one was going to convert the FS into a working R/C sub I would think....

might be difficult,as the FS interior set changed from season to season.alex

Makes me wonder why the Spindrift didn't get 'repurposed' for 'City Beneath the Sea' like just about every other IA effects prop. Or did it?


The Spindrift itself didn't, but IIRC, the flight crew uniforms from LOTG were used for City Beneath The Sea's security forces.

The Spindrift itself didn't, but IIRC, the flight crew uniforms from LOTG were used for City Beneath The Sea's security forces.

And in further 'Fox Studios Warehouse Tag' the Galaxy logo patches ended up in LOTG, that 'g' is so stylized you just don't see that little..um..bar thingie..


And I am a boob, I got my production timelines mixed up. VTTBOTS ran 1964-68, LIS was '66-68, so that pic must have been 1967, with Voyage's 3rd season and Space's second. So the implied statement that the interior set for the FS was re-used from LIS is totally misguided. Ooops. :)

As to another comment about all the changes in the FS-1 interior making using the kit parts for a soundstage diorama difficult, so what? pick what you want, I'm sure there's gonna be a TON of aftermarket detail parts, esp. with the 4th season of VTTBOTS finally coming to DVD and people will be going over those scenes with a microscope, looking for details...

Seaview, you comment you knew a guy who worked the soundstage. I know the walls for the FS were 'wild' for shooting, but do you have any idea if the set itself, the floor, the framing to hang the walls on, if that was fixed on the stage floor or if it was on a platform that could be moved? Because I wonder about those times that belly hatch was used, if they rolled the set over an existing trapdoor to the understage or what...

And I am a boob, I got my production timelines mixed up. VTTBOTS ran 1964-68, LIS was '66-68, so that pic must have been 1967, with Voyage's 3rd season and Space's second. So the implied statement that the interior set for the FS was re-used from LIS is totally misguided. Ooops. :)


The Guy Williams candid shot was taken during the filming of the first season episode, The Sky Pirate, which was shot in late January, 1966.



Seaview, you comment you knew a guy who worked the soundstage. I know the walls for the FS were 'wild' for shooting, but do you have any idea if the set itself, the floor, the framing to hang the walls on, if that was fixed on the stage floor or if it was on a platform that could be moved? Because I wonder about those times that belly hatch was used, if they rolled the set over an existing trapdoor to the understage or what...


The floor was on a platform that could be rolled, complete with the floor lighting panels.

Makes me wonder why the Spindrift didn't get 'repurposed' for 'City Beneath the Sea' like just about every other IA effects prop. Or did it?


They did use the glowing back wall of the Spindrift passenger compartment in CBTS, Steve. I'm pretty sure it's part of Pacifica's hospital set.

And still glowing, BTW.

They did use the glowing back wall of the Spindrift passenger compartment in CBTS, Steve. I'm pretty sure it's part of Pacifica's hospital set.

And still glowing, BTW.

LOL! Of COURSE it would still glow! I mean, the lights were there, be a shame to not use them.

For some reason I've got it in my head that one of the office lobby sets from 'Towering Inferno' was used as President Basehart's office, but it's been so long since I've seen CBTC I'm sure I must be mistaken.

I'm still mindblown over how all those J2 hullls got cut to pieces and used as buildings for the city.

And Seaview, thank you for the data. That's what comes from my not having the LIS DVDs, I saw color and went instantly to second season. Geeze I'm making a horrible impression! :)

The laser gun should have been a clue to me.

It's a funny thing, watching the VTTBOTS second season DVDs, the poor Flying Sub had a HORRIBLE track record, I think they lost, like, 3 in the first 6 episodes!

hey, there's something you can do with the 'Ski figure from that wonderful aftermarket set that's being done! Give him a fire extinguisher to put out all the circuit fires that break out!

I kid because I love :)

For some reason I've got it in my head that one of the office lobby sets from 'Towering Inferno' was used as President Basehart's office, but it's been so long since I've seen CBTC I'm sure I must be mistaken.

Although the sets do share certain design characteristics, CBTS was shot well before "The Towering Inferno" was so much as a gleam in Irwin Allen's eye.

Although the sets do share certain design characteristics, CBTS was shot well before "The Towering Inferno" was so much as a gleam in Irwin Allen's eye.

Right again, cripes, I'm really swinging and missing today!

CBTC was 1971, Inferno was '74, so, yep.

was any of the '69 'pitch pilot' used in the '71 TV movie? Aside from stock FS shots of course.

Another example of Fox's reuse of props. Time Tunnel's Operation Tick Tock logo were turned sideways and used as Ape Management's Arm Band logo in "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes".

Rogue

And I am a boob, I got my production timelines mixed up. VTTBOTS ran 1964-68, LIS was '66-68, so that pic must have been 1967, with Voyage's 3rd season and Space's second. So the implied statement that the interior set for the FS was re-used from LIS is totally misguided. Ooops. :)

Steve -

LIS ran from 1965 to 1968, not 1966 to 1968. The pic of Guy Williams has him wearing the first season uniform, so that would have been from the first season that ran from 1965-1966.

Bryan

Steve -

LIS ran from 1965 to 1968, not 1966 to 1968. The pic of Guy Williams has him wearing the first season uniform, so that would have been from the first season that ran from 1965-1966.

Bryan


Yep. Again, I blame myself and not getting the DVDs, and only going off memories. The outfits didn't stick so much in my mind from watching the show back then as all the 'stuff', the laser pistol really was a better clue for me.

I could go on to a whole other ramble about Remco and Monkey Division and why didn't they ever MAKE a toy of that laser pistol given blahblah blah (and I much preferred the 1st season lasers, they just seemed more realistic.) but this isn't the place, I know. :)

You know, there was some discussion of the seats inside the Flying Sub. I can't help but wonder if, given how IA seemed to love his surplus stuff if those are from some military transport or some such, something that flew in the late '40s to the '50s, something that could be bought as scrap for a few bucks. I'm pretty sure that's where the seats for the control room of the Seaview came from altho those would have been Navy surplus. Not pilot seats per se, I'm thinking navigator or flight engineer or cargomaster seats, maybe.

Of course they could be made from scratch, but somehow, given how IA worked, and the vast, vast warehouses of stuff on the Fox lot, yes?

I have a hunch there's people here who really know their vintage military aircraft, maybe something will turn up? ;)

Makes me wonder why the Spindrift didn't get 'repurposed' for 'City Beneath the Sea' like just about every other IA effects prop. Or did it?

Well, it kind of did. In the demo film that was made to pitch CBTS as a tv show, the Spindrift cockpit was used as the FS cockpit. They remove the chairs, and put a FS chair in it. The demo film also shows the futuristic drilling rig more than the tv movie, probably the only model made for the demo reel. Take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZrifEjU-H0


I'm surprised nobody's ever mentioned how the Seaview (including the NIMR dock!) was 'borrowed' for the first Flint movie.

I have, in other threads.:thumbsup: If you want to see practially every sf prop, or set piece that Fox had, watch "Our Man Flint". In addition to the Seaview control room, deck set, and dock, you had the C.M.D.F. set used as the Z.O.W.I.E. command. The Seaview's reactor became the electro de-framentizer! The miniturizer hex panels, which were used on the FS floor were wall decorations, even that black cone-shaped prop with the gold antennas on top from LIS was used. I'm sure there's more, but that is all I can remember now.

I remember watching VTTBOTS on the sci-fi channel years ago, and on one second season episode they had a view out of the observation nose, and on the dock was the reactor, and a forklift with the Galaxy emblem on it.


So back to the beloved FS-1. Anybody gonna take that impressive interior and make a diorama of the actual filming set? Be a good way to use the parts if one was going to convert the FS into a working R/C sub I would think....

Good idea, lets hope someone posts some plans for a r/c flying sub.

David.

At one point in its development Fantastic Voyage was actually going to be an entry in the Flint series--if you look at the storyboards on the special edition DVD the hero is referred to as Mr. Flint, not Mr. Grant, and bears a clear resemblance to James Coburn.

At one point in its development Fantastic Voyage was actually going to be an entry in the Flint series--if you look at the storyboards on the special edition DVD the hero is referred to as Mr. Flint, not Mr. Grant, and bears a clear resemblance to James Coburn.

Wow, that's really interesting. I never knew FV originated as an installment of the Flint series (although it certainly makes sense). Thank God the studio decided to take the material a bit more seriously.

I never knew FV originated as an installment of the Flint series (although it certainly makes sense). Thank God the studio decided to take the material a bit more seriously.

Yes, you did. (http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=184730) Google is scary. (googling fantastic voyage flint)

Fantastic Voyage did not originate as a Flint project though--I think Jerome Bixby and someone else were originally treating it as a Victorian adventure before it got the futuristic treatment. I'd love to know what the timeline was because obviously Saul David produced the Flint movies and at some point when it was in his hands work was done with the idea that it would be a Flint movie--and you can still see a LITTLE of this approach remaining in some of Grant's wisecracks early in the movie--in fact if you look at the scene on the escalator with Boyd and Edmond O'Brien ("But I don't WANT to be miniaturized!" "It's only for an hour!") you can easily see Coburn and Lee J. Cobb playing that scene...

Fantastic Voyage did not originate as a Flint project though--I think Jerome Bixby and someone else were originally treating it as a Victorian adventure before it got the futuristic treatment. I'd love to know what the timeline was because obviously Saul David produced the Flint movies and at some point when it was in his hands work was done with the idea that it would be a Flint movie--and you can still see a LITTLE of this approach remaining in some of Grant's wisecracks early in the movie--in fact if you look at the scene on the escalator with Boyd and Edmond O'Brien ("But I don't WANT to be miniaturized!" "It's only for an hour!") you can easily see Coburn and Lee J. Cobb playing that scene...

Exactly what I was thinking. Another:

Test message from the Proteus, sir.
"Miss Peterson has smiled."

Well, that's an auspicious sign.
Confirm receiving

Yes, you did.

Thanks for pointing out how spotty my memory has become. :)

in fact if you look at the scene on the escalator with Boyd and Edmond O'Brien ("But I don't WANT to be miniaturized!" "It's only for an hour!") you can easily see Coburn and Lee J. Cobb playing that scene...

So true. In fact, after picturing the above scene with the Flint cast, I'm suddenly having a hard time picturing it with the real cast (of course, in a few weeks I'll have forgotten this discussion ever took place, so no harm done).

I can't believe this thread hasn't been locked yet!

Well, let's get back on track then, shall we?

(altho I have no clue why, with all the re-use of stuff from FV that went on, why IA didn't find a use for the cool dive mask/helmets...)

(and thanks to the guys for the info, some unexpected stuff that I never even though to consider!)

So, OK, any decent pics of the interior of the Flying Sub in it's CBTS Aquafoil phase? I seem to recall someone mentioning a second reactor wall in place of the bunk/storage wall? That seems a prime target for the aftermarket parts folks.

I have hopes that CBTS will show up as an extra on the VTTBOTS season 4 vol. 2 release, same as the various Time Tunnel remakes showed up on the Time Tunnel vol. 2 set.

I can't believe this thread hasn't been locked yet!


I like the scene in "Our Man Flint!" where he locks himself in the bathroom, turns his threads inside out to make a Nehru jacket, and makes a turban out of a drying towel. :D

photos

I've noted in another post the red color to the exterior full scale as well as the red to the interior support structure.

photos

I've noted in another post the red color to the exterior full scale as well as the red to the interior support structure.

Nice, nice, thank you!

So, the paint on the interior structure, I can see that-probably had a few gallons of IA Red/Orange to get rid of, but the exterior paint, what was up with that?

Again, I've not seen CBTS since it ran way back when (but note how it's stuck with me, I just have an oddball memory for useless stuff) but I could swear the Aquafoils were yellow so they could use stock footage from VTTBOTS, so, huh.

There's another aftermarket item possible there, I think. speculation, non-canon decals- Pacifica logo, reg numbers and the like.

So who's gonna make the resin/vacform Aquadozer in scale to the Flying Sub? :)

Hi Steve

The aquafoils were in fact yellow, I think that the intention was to re color the FS-1 Miniatures so they did the outer full scale red with the yellow front, then likely changed their minds and decided to stick with stock footage.

I did up a model a while ago what I thought it would look like. I will likely buy two Moebius FS models and paint the second one red.

So who's gonna make the resin/vacform Aquadozer in scale to the Flying Sub? :)

Those are available on eBay from time to time. If you are seriously interested, there's one available right now.
The beauty of the new Moebius Flying Sub is that you can buy more than one; one to be in it's original glory, and the other you can paint up as an aquafoil, complete with red pillars, supports, viewport and minus the ladder. You can buy a third kit to cannablize the fusion core wall and install it where the bunk wall is located, use the 2 seats and install them in your "original" FS build as "passenger seats", and build that third kit as a hollowed out shell that you can suspend from a cieling, while selling or trading the remaining interior parts to a fellow modeller.

The ebay Aqua Dozer is reasonably in scale with the Seaview and small Flying Sub although it's more of an approximation than an accurate reproduction (take a look at the entire line from that company some time BTW--they have either made, or plan to make, just about every vehicle ever shown in a movie, TV show or described in a sci fi novel).

CBTS was a Warner Bros. production I believe so despite the use of all those Fox props I don't think you'll see it coupled with any Voyage DVD sets.

The ebay Aqua Dozer is reasonably in scale with the Seaview and small Flying Sub although it's more of an approximation than an accurate reproduction (take a look at the entire line from that company some time BTW--they have either made, or plan to make, just about every vehicle ever shown in a movie, TV show or described in a sci fi novel).

CBTS was a Warner Bros. production I believe so despite the use of all those Fox props I don't think you'll see it coupled with any Voyage DVD sets.

Well, given that the Aquadozer is one of those things that just doesn't get much love due to the program it's in being mostly unseen for decades...

Never quite understood the name 'Aquadozer' however, it always looked more like a tug for shepherding cargo subs in and out of the docking area. Ah well, it's goofy looking and yet in the context of the show interesting.

As to the Warner Bros issue, I'm not so sure that's entirely a barrier. It *may* be that while Warner was the distributor, the product was actually owned by IA Productions. Time to check the IMDB!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065556/board/nest/82960780?d=83658405&p=1#83658405

OK, it WAS owed by IA's company, Warner only did distro on the overseas theatrical release, but then during the crazy buyouts and stuff during the '70s, Warner seems to have ownership.

But they're not doing anything with it, and I suspect they'd just as soon let Fox throw it on a VTTBOTS box set and get some money for it than have it just sit in the vault.

OTOH, maybe they'll release it someday in their 'sci-fi' double feature discs, like they did with 'Battle Beneath The Earth' and 'The Ultimate Warrior'.

I'm just looking for more chances to get some Flying Sub exposure out there.

also, Seaview, good suggestions. Expensive suggestions, but good! :)

Might take that 'ceiling hanger' one and put some brass tubes in it for a home made Lydecker rig and 'fly' it! :)

I've got a very odd idea in the back of my head of making a 'real type' version of the FS-1, doing all kinds of little mods like flaps and spoilers (spoilerons?), extended leading edge slat, actual, practical, logical landing gear instead of the odd wheel setup used, and so on. Might never get it done, might be too much for my skill level, but boy it would be fun to try.

Hi Steve

The aquafoils were in fact yellow, I think that the intention was to re color the FS-1 Miniatures so they did the outer full scale red with the yellow front, then likely changed their minds and decided to stick with stock footage.

I did up a model a while ago what I thought it would look like. I will likely buy two Moebius FS models and paint the second one red.

Wanted to give you props for your work and idea! I think if CBTS had gone to series that's pretty much how Aurora would have packaged the Flying Sub re-pop. Very nicely done!

I still think IA would have worked the Spindrift into the show, it's just so logical to use it as some kind of 'Aquafoil Plus' passenger ship, altho I imagine the giant 'intake grids' would have to be capped over in some vain attempt to make the ship somewhat aero and hydrodynamic.