- "The TV-21 was Dad's baby, the first ever super-Mach 20 ship. It was the prototype to Thunderbird 1."
— Scott Tracy
The TV-21, also known as the first Thunderbird, was International Rescue's first prototype craft. It was a prototype to Thunderbird 1. It was designed by Jeff Tracy, and after investing everything into the construction of the ship, it was constructed by Brains and it was piloted by Jeff himself. The ship became the world's first Mach 20 flyer as it contains the most powerful thruster Brains ever built, even more powerful than the ones equipped in all the later Thunderbird aircrafts, despite being a dated craft. The ship was powered by fusion reactors.
History[]
During a flight, the ship was sabotaged by the Hood. Jeff was forced to abandon his ship and ditch it somewhere over the Mariana Trench instead of letting the Hood get his hands on it. Even though Jeff survived, he was heartbroken, believing the craft to have been destroyed after being ditched in the ocean.
It was rediscovered intact years later in the Mariana Trench by a pair of deep sea explorers, in Up from the Depths Part 1 and Part 2, piloting a survey craft ostensibly made to map out the rest of the Mariana Trench. The survey craft was however, built and supplied to the team, and ultimately controlled, by the Mechanic, specifically to find the TV-21, with the survey team remained in the dark until the last minute. As a meticulously well-built aircraft that was built to last by Brains, not only did the TV-21 survive being crashed and sunken in the Mariana Trench in one piece, all of the internal systems remained intact and fully functional despite nearly two decades of disuse and lack of maintenance, as well as prolonged stay in an environment that it was not built to sit in.
Everyone in the Tracy household but Alan, who was too young to remember anything about the craft when it went missing, was excited about the discovery, and went with extra zeal about the rescue of the survey team, whose craft mysteriously shut down as soon as the rediscovery was made, not knowing that it was a trap set up by the Mechanic all along.
Having successfully baited the International Rescue to help dig out the craft and confirm its status, the Mechanic then wrestled with the Tracy brothers for possession of the craft that he had stolen shortly after it was dug out, severely damaging two Thunderbirds in the process. Fortunately, the survey team was able to be rescued. Eventually it became clear that International Rescue had the upper hand and the Mechanic, having no way to turn the tables around, overloaded the fusion generators of the TV-21, resulting in a massive explosion that destroyed the TV-21 alongside the survey craft, to cover his tracks and to rob International Rescue of their victory.
All that was salvaged from the craft was a hat that Jeff Tracy used to wear on missions, which he left on the seat of TV-21 when he was forced to ditch the craft.
Design[]
The TV-21 is powered by fusion reactors, with a large thruster at the back for high speed movement, with smaller thrusters around it for added speed or slower movements. The plane also has thrusters at the bottom and top of the main body to control altitude. To allow access to the cockpit, there is an air lock at the bottom of the plane leading to a small room behind the cockpit. The TV-21 has a silver cylindrical body, with a yellow paint job just behind the cockpit, which has a black and white chequered section on either side. The front of the craft has a dark grey nose cone with ‘TV-21’ on either side in white as well as ‘Col. Jeff Tracy’ underneath. Just behind the nose cone is the cockpit, with three triangular windows in a triangular formation. The TV-21 has three wings, two on either side and one on top, all equidistant apart around the body. The wings start at the black and white chequered section closest to the back of the craft, and end at the top of the primary thruster. At the back of the TV-21 is a large black thruster taking the same diameter as the body. At the top of the thruster are six secondary thrusters, two in between each pair of wings. Behind each pair of secondary thrusters are similar thrusters positioned in between the pair.
Cockpit[]
The TV-21’s cockpit is a semi circle with the windows at the front and a door to the airlock at the back. Under the windows is the pilot console, which has a series of levers and buttons to control the plane. The two levers on the chairs control the direction and speed of the TV-21, and the two levers next to the pilot’s feet control the altitude of the plane. Next to these two levers are large divider consoles with four levers on each, controlling the auxiliary thrusters. The pilot console has four button panels, two flat on the surface on the left and right, and two directly in front of the pilot, one on top of the other, each connected to a screen on the right of the button panel.
Trivia[]
- The TV-21's command bridge has a resemblance to the original Thunderbird 3's pilot seat.
- The name TV-21 is a reference to TV Century 21, a comic magazine published by City Magazines Ltd. largely based on the Supermarionation output of AP Films.