- "Right! I'll put the kettle on!"
— Langstrom welcomes Scott to CIR.R.U.S
Langstrom Fischler is a climatologist from Skyhook, Impact and Weather or Not. He is the head and founder of Fischler Industries, a company that has lead a couple of ambitious projects in the name of monitoring weather and providing water for dry countries, only to cause a ridiculous disaster each time due to the lazy, rushed and unnecessarily cheap construction of the machines designed for the tasks. He is considered a near-mortal enemy of International Rescue due to his actions having put them (and many others) in mortal danger, as well as having put three of their five operational Thunderbirds out of action during the course of one rescue.
History[]
Skyhook[]
The first disaster he caused for International Rescue was when his weather monitoring station CIR.R.U.S. was about to plummet into a hurricane with himself and two others on-board. I.R. saved them by the skin on their teeth after three failed attempts caused by the cheap construction of the station, disabling and badly damaging Thunderbirds 1, 2 and 3 and forcing Thunderbird 5, not designed with direct rescues in mind, to step in.
Impact[]
After CIR.R.U.S. was destroyed, and his space operations permit was revoked, Langstrom Fischler learned absolutely nothing whatsoever. So he tried to bring a comet into Earth's orbit with a radio-controlled rocket, with the intention of using the frozen water inside to rehydrate drought-torn countries. Unsurprisingly, the rocket controlling the comet failed, and instead of orbiting the planet it engaged a collision course with the Earth and Global One, with massive casualty projections if it hit. This forced I.R. to use Thunderbird 3 to blow up the comet and Thunderbird 5, which is again not designed for partaking in rescues, to tow Global One to safety.
Weather or Not[]
After the failure of his comet idea, Langstrom decided to construct a fleet of weather drones that could bring rain to any location. However, since he remained as careless as he has ever been, there was a bug in their programming that caused them to create a condensed thunderstorm around his observation deck, where he and three possible investors became trapped. FAB 1 along with Thunderbirds 2 and S had to save them while being attacked by the drones and unable to fight back.
These disasters resulted in three of the most frustrating missions in International Rescue history, even today.
Personality[]
Langstrom is buffoonish on near cartoony levels, to the point where he forgot the names of his crew on-board CIR.R.U.S., and briefly about the fact that he employed them. Langstrom has a very positive and blokey attitude, but he isn't exactly friendly, as he blames others for his own errors. He never seems to take anything seriously, and he was merrily joking along throughout the life-threatening experience he had inside CIR.R.U.S. on the day it almost fell into a Category 5 hurricane.
Langstrom cares very little about safety, even when it comes to designing manned machines where safety is absolutely necessary. He skipped the installation of many safety features for CIR.R.U.S. just to save time and money. Brains was unable to talk any sense into Langstrom throughout the numerous attempts it took to save his life. His mind wasn't on reconsidering his methods when John Tracy in Thunderbird 5 saved him either. Instead, he declared the construction of a satellite to be his new project for no real reason and then dismissed his fellow weather station crew, before saying he would replace them with monkeys, as they would be "a lot easier". His callousness with safety, weird personality, and refusal to learn from his mistakes have ultimately resulted in other disasters, and the normally reserved Brains cannot help but fume when looking at him, speaking to him, or merely hearing his name.
Despite his callousness and inattention to detail, he is meticulous enough to find a loophole in the revoking of his space operations permit--nothing says he is not allowed to operate in space, so long as he is not in space personally. Unfortunately, learning nothing from his previous mistakes, his impulsiveness and opportunist tendencies led him to keep coming up with seemingly brilliant yet carelessly executed ideas, with his trademark hastily-put-together equipment and poorly calculated plans. He seems to have a fascination with the skies and space, with all of his endeavors thus far taking place in high altitudes, which, to the frustration of International Rescue, make it very difficult for them to pull off rescues when things go wrong, which unfortunately in the case of Fischler, things always go wrong in more than one way.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Brains worked briefly with Langstrom shortly after he finished university. He claims that, even back then, Langstrom would compromise safety for everything else.
- Langstrom used to hire two employees (one of them being Kinnear), but because of his continuing failures, the two decided to quit Fischler Industries. Kinnear was subsequently seen working for Hayley Edmonds in Bolt From the Blue, an episode without Langstrom.
Goofs[]
- In the official soundtrack of the series, his first name was misspelled as Langston once.