The Gyrosub was the chosen means of transport for the 1940s aviator/submariner, Spy Smasher. The Gyrosub could superbly function as a car, an airplane, a boat, and an undersea bathyscaphe.
History
The first Gyrosub was destroyed in Spring 1940.[1] The second Gyrosub was launched later that same spring.[2]
In 1945, Armstrong installed new robot controls, invented by Captain Albright, which improved the craft's automated performance, enabling it to track a fleeing car, for example, while Spy Smasher was out of the cockpit, working the rope-ladder.[3]
The Gyrosub underwent revisions and modifications throughout the 1940s, and seldom looked completely the same, from one appearance to the next. The locations and shapes of the hatches, and the configuration of the windshield, were especially changeable, but the overall size and shape of the hull also varied dramatically, over short periods of time.
Capabilities
- Extremely durable. It could crash into enemy warplanes in mid-flight, and knock them apart, without being damaged.[4]
- Extremely fast and maneuverable in flight.
- Extremely long range. Spy Smasher once flew the Gyrosub nonstop from America to Germany.[5]
- Extremely powerful lifting capacity. Armstrong once dove the Gyrosub beneath a burning steamship, heavily freighted with ammunition, broke it loose from its moorings, boosted it out to sea some distance, then escaped undetected underwater at high speed.[6]
- Silent in flight.[7]
- Hovered in mid-air.[8]
Weapons
- Super-Sub Machine Gun.[9]
Onboard Equipment
- Automatic Landing Gear,[9] and Hovering Controls.[10]
- Bombs.[11]
- Bulletproof Armor.[10]
- Deep-sea Diving Suit and air hoses, stowed in an airlock hatch.[12]
- Magic Detector, built into the instrument panel.[5]
- Rope-Ladder.[6]
- Sky-Writing Equipment.[9]
- Superscope, a powerful telescope.[13]
- Synthetic Vaporizer Gun, shrouded the Gyrosub in a disguising cloud.[14]
- Towing Cable. The Gyrosub could tow an unmanned fighter plane in flight, and safely land it, like a glider.[15]
- Vacuum Attachment, for clamping the Gyrosub onto other aircraft in mid-flight.[8]
Notes
- The concept of the Gyrosub was developed for Fawcett Publications by Bill Parker and C.C. Beck.
- Despite its constantly-changing appearance, there seemed to be only one Gyrosub in action at any one time, and only Spy Smasher ever operated it. This implies that the builder was Armstrong.
- However, nowhere in the first 61 issues of Whiz Comics is any character or company or team identified as the designer or builder of the Gyrosub.
- In Whiz Comics #62, Spy Smasher remarks that "The new robot controls Captain Albright invented for me will follow their car wherever it goes !!" This would seem to point to another famous aviator hero of that era.
Recommended Readings
Related Articles
See Also
Links and References
- ↑ Whiz Comics #3B
- ↑ Whiz Comics #4
- ↑ Whiz Comics #62, 4th story, page 2, panel 5
- ↑ Whiz Comics #33
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Whiz Comics #52
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Spy Smasher #6
- ↑ Whiz Comics #2
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Whiz Comics #6
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Whiz Comics #11
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Spy Smasher #7
- ↑ Spy Smasher #9
- ↑ Whiz Comics #49
- ↑ Whiz Comics #29
- ↑ Whiz Comics #7
- ↑ Whiz Comics #50