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'Little Nellie' Wallis WA-116 Agile Series 1 gyroplane

photo © Ken Wallis
Former Royal Air Force Wing Commander Ken Wallis flying his creation, the Wallis WA-116 autogyro.
photo © Ken Wallis

photo from Wikipedia
Creator and pilot Ken Wallis in the Little Nellie, which was used in the James Bond movie You Only Live Twice, at an event at Pinewood Studios, UK.
photo from Wikipedia

James Bond (Sean Connery) flies an autogyro aircraft nicknamed Little Nellie in the movie You Only Live Twice. This unusual machine was based on the Wallis WA-116 Agile, a British autogyro developed in the early 1960s by former Royal Air Force Wing Commander Ken Wallis.

Ken Wallis spent much of his life as a war hero, inventor and extraordinary engineer. He developed a number of variants of the autogyro aircraft, implementing several improvements to the design, including the offset gimbal rotor head which gives the autogyro hands-off stability. The first prototype autogyro, registered G-ARRT, was first flown on 2 August 1961. Five more WA-116s were built in 1962, three of which were for evaluation by the British Army Air Corps. In 1966, two modified WA-116s were used for the filming of You Only Live Twice. All the flying was done by Wallis with a WA-116 registered G-ARZB but an identical version, G-AVDH, had been fitted out the same way for other shots. Ken Wallis has owned the original G-ARZB ever since. A similar version was made for display at Planet Hollywood.

little nellieSeveral models of the Little Nellie were created by Corgi, in the scales 1:64, 1:50, 1:43 and 1:36, find a selection on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and eBay.

More about Ken Wallis:

Interview with Ken Wallis on Bondpix.com.

The Lives of Ken Wallis: Engineer and Aviator Extraordinaire (UK, paperback)

Ken Wallis Born to Bond (UK, DVD)

You Only Live Twice Little Nellie: The World of Ken Wallis and James Bond 007 (UK, paperback)

360 degree image of Ken Wallis and his creations

Sources: WikiPedia, Bondpix.com.
Product Code: 
au032

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