I’m very much looking forward to your Eagle documentary and as you can tell from the abovephoto I’m a bit of a fan (I have more downstairs too)!

My first encounter with the Eagle was on the initial UK screening of SPACE: 1999, I was 11 and I’d been an avid Anderson fan because of Thunderbirds, Stingray, UFO and especially Captain Scarlet and couldn’t wait to see this new series. When I finally got to see it the whole show simply blew me away and I was hooked from the start. I loved the world-building, the design of Alpha, the uniforms and the effects – and the Eagle was just wonderful. Obviously one of the big appeals of any Anderson series is the hardware but the Eagle was (and is) just beautiful. It looks so functional, as if it’s designed for the real world and not just for aesthetics; it looks like it could really do the job it’s there for.

Subsequent episodes only reinforced this and I adored the modifications – different pod colours (especially the red stripes on the Rescue Eagle) and designs, additional thrusters, lasers, boarding tubes and the like. I drew Eagles obsessively, collected each novelisation as it came out and scoured sci-fi mags for pictures of them I could cut out and keep; I still have them all. 

When Dinky announced they were making a die-cast model I pleaded with my parents until they gave in and got me one, I’m not ashamed to say I literally cried with happiness – and I still have that too! And that enthusiasm, joy and love I have for Eagles has never left me, I now have more Dinky’s, a 44″, several 22″ and a whole wall of Product Enterprise/Sixteen12 Eagles – and many more more, including Konami’s and Bill Altenburg’s awesome 3D prints of the Ultra Probe.

The design still works, it still looks contemporary and nearly six decades on it absolutely still thrills and excites me with the potential of more adventures!