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Super Flight Deck
Promised so much in the advert, but was a crappy yellow plastic Phantom on a length of fishing line slamming into a target that looked absolutely nothing like Ark Royal.
Stretch Armstrong, utterly pointless. And the Evil Kenevil stunt bike that launched from a big red flywheel
Best toy ever !
I had the Super Flight Deck.
Launched the full length of the garden, dodging shrubs and bushes on the descent before activating the pull-up yellow door.
Saw the thread title, came here to say 'Super Flight Deck', noticed that was the OPs experience too, walks away.
Promised so much in the advert, but was a crappy yellow plastic Phantom on a length of fishing line slamming into a target that looked absolutely nothing like Ark Royal.
If yours was anything like mine then the gizmo that was meant to turn the plane round at the top of its trajectory never worked properly so it either got spun round just after it launched or you were landing it backwards which didn't turn out well.
Johnny Astro. Basically just a fan and a balloon.
TCR
Thankfully I never had one, but the spoilt kids up the road did. One car was just ever so slightly faster than the other, so there was no racing to be had. Whoever had the fast car just held down the overtake button and won.
I swear that you could win by Selotaping down the triggers and leaving the room to get a Vimto and a couple of biscuits.
Spoilt kid round the corner had it too. He used to liven it up with lighter fluid and a box of matches.
The evel keneivel stunt bike was a bit rubbish - the version that was like a easy-rider chopper was properly awful. it only did one thing which was.... fall over.
TCR
Thankfully I never had one, but the spoilt kids up the road did.
yes - great adverts but very much a spectator sport
We had a TCR set (which we 'found' and played with before Christmas and got caught by mum - sorry mum) but I used this as much as anything to keep it going... (if you know, you know).
Pretty much all of them that weren't Lego really. Certainly anything that was advertised on TV was guaranteed to be shit.
Raleigh activator.
Raleigh activator.
Raleigh Vektar!
Never had a Big Trak myself, but the rich kid in our class said it was a major disappointment.
I got TCR instead of Scalectrix for Xmas one year. Yes, it was dull.
*wanders in to cite the biggest gap between advert and reality*
*sees a number of posters already identified Super Flight Deck*
*wanders out*
Never had a Big Trak myself, but the rich kid in our class said it was a major disappointment.
Don't say that. I really wanted one of those. No chance of it happening. I keep seeing them come up on eBay and worry than one drunken evening I might buy one.
raving bonkers. raleigh chopper with sturmey archer gears. stretch armstrong. scalextric. roller skates.
most 70's toys were ****.
Oh crikey, roller skates that laced over your normal shoes instead of actual roller boots.
Almost impossible to control.
thems the ones. they expanded for a 3 to a size 9
As an adult I've bought A LOT of Scalextric/SCX for my kids (ahem).
For Scalextric to be any good you need more than a 10ft figure of eight and two cars. Which is why I can fill a 20"x10" floor and have something north of 40 cars. Get the chaps round with a few a beers and it is quality entertainment.
Covid and a bad knee have really put the knackers on it of late, but this year the Christmas Grand Prix is back!
and that cars stuff that made a loop. it never worked. lengths of track were good for sword fencing fights.
Was that the hotwheels stuff?
Not sure I'd call it fencing, but we did wallop the living daylights out of each other with it.
Subbuteo.
Oh crikey, roller skates that laced over your normal shoes instead of actual roller boots.
Said shitty roller skates broken up screwed to a plank of wood made a skateboard.
That subsequent plank-of-wood skateboard was also shit but kept us entertained for a whole summer! 🙂
and that cars stuff that made a loop. it never worked.
I had some yellow plastic tracking to run Matchbox cars on, thought it was bloody great.
Also used it for fighting, obvs.
Ninja Turtles. I loved the ninja turtles, but the toys were so crap. Hardly any articulation, they came with loads of swords and stuff at least.
Oh yeah and this thing. I think I only knew one kid that ever had more than one of the ghostbusters figures (obviously he had them all AND the car) but somehow every kid seemed to have 1 Peter Venkman and 1 bloody terrible haunted toilet.
ton
Full Memberand that cars stuff that made a loop. it never worked. lengths of track were good for sword fencing fights.
The stuff with the red rectangles to hold it together, and the rubber band powered launchers? Swords and guns respectively, in my house, you could fire smaller stuff surprisingly far, with a launcher built to fire a diecast car. Dominoes were the ideal ammo.
Any remote control car from the 70s/80s. First ones actually had a wire attached to the remote so you had to run along with them! Then they got sophisticated, but the aerial would always break off the first day you got it, or the batteries had to be replaced every 5 minutes.
Super Flight Deck had a kicking on here previously. I thought it was mint, long before Tom Cruise ‘called the ball’.
Unlike its analogue predecessor, Electronic Battleships was ‘buggy’
Crossfire! The idea was that you shot ball bearings at a big ball bearing that had a plastic ring around it but 1) each player only got about 10 bearings so one decent volley was all you got and 2) the guns were horribly designed so you got blisters just be looking at them. 1) was sorted by my grandfather who acquired a load of spare bearings from his work so we had about 100 each, 2) needed a lot of tape around the guns.
Subbuteo
Yes! And that cricket one that had a ramp from the bowler.
Those slagging off Flight Deck... what did you expect for £3.75?! 😀 I read the wrong one! £2.75!
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Child of the 70's - check.
Father in the Royal Navy serving on Ark Royal - check.
God father was a Phantom pilot - check.
So how the **** did it take until 2022 on some nerdy mountain biking site that I discover there was a toy literally intended for me!!!! Ok, sounds like I didn't miss out on much but even so - jeez Dad (RIP), how come I didn't get a Super Flight Deck????!!??
A mate managed to rip his Stretch Armstrong apart. It was full of a viscous green gel IIRC and was even more useless as a toy with a leg missing.
I had Super Flight Deck too until our cat killed it.
Etch a sketch was a little pointless as a true CAD tool.
Any remote control car from the 70s/80s.
A friend had a 'remote control'Saint jag XJS.
The 'remote control' was a was a sort of clicker - clapping your hands would work as well. It didnt have any steering - one click would be forward, the next one, if it responded to it, would make it reverse, but it turned left when it was going backwards. So basically you could do clumsy 3 point turns.
Super Flight Deck more yellow and infinitely superior (not sure why) to ‘Flight Deck’
£4.99. I must’ve been a spoilt bastard
I had some yellow plastic tracking to run Matchbox cars on, thought it was bloody great.
Me too - loved that stuff
Also used it for fighting, obvs.
Me too - loving doing that
I can still almost see in my head the exact shade of off-white when the yellow plastic strip was forcibly folded in half.
Never had a Big Trak myself, but the rich kid in our class said it was a major disappointment.
I had one. There were two issues that I remember. Out of the box, the battery compartment was really sketchy so you'd to get everything 'just so' for it to work. And it always seemed to list to one side, whether that was down to build quality or nap of the carpet I don't know.
I had that Lotus and March car set too, and a helicopter version of the Star Trek thing that would fly forwards or backwards in a circle and go up and down. IIRC it had a hook on it so you could pick stuff up and move it round the circle and put it back down again.
Johnny Astro.
oh, and Sea Monkeys
Any remote control car from the 70s/80s.
The Tamiya Avante and Kyosho Optima Mid would like to disagree!
I had a thing that at the time I loved but looking back was pretty poor, its name escapes me. There was a lift with an Archimedes screw, a dozen steel ball bearings, three rubber-skinned drums and a catchment area at the far end which was nominally some sort of scoring system. Boing, boing, boing, ka-chunk. In truth, the skill was in setting the bloody thing up so that the balls made it to the end and returned perpetual-motion style. It took hours and the markings on the playmat thing was way off.
There must be loads of toys of this era that promised so much and failed to deliver, like phones in the 2000s. There were tons of things I lusted after, never got and were probably shit. Anyone have Tin Can Alley? Or some thing with a rotating disc where you dropped off parachutists?
The Tamiya Avante and Kyosho Optima Mid would like to disagree!
ANy remote control car that was affordable to a normal family then!
For Scalextric to be any good you need more than a 10ft figure of eight and two cars. Which is why I can fill a 20″x10″ floor and have something north of 40 cars. Get the chaps round with a few a beers and it is quality entertainment.
We did this a few years back, cept we didn't set up the track till after the pub, fitted 3 crossovers & couldn't work out why one controller would work both cars
Spirograph. What were they thinking.
O think the 70s were all about selling turds, austin maxis, flight deck, flairs, roller boots.