Random set of the day: Stunt Copter
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 6515 Stunt Copter, released in 1994. It's one of 29 Town sets produced that year. It contains 35 pieces and 1 minifig, and its retail price was US$3.25.
It's owned by 3007 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
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22 comments on this article
Legit, this was one of my favourite sets of '95 (which was already an absolutely brilliant year for Town sets). I loved this design of small helicopters, although I always worried how close the spinning rotor blades were to the poor pilot's head.
Stunt Copter is right!
You'd have to be crazy to fly something with a blade that close to your head and hardly anything keeping you in your seat but your own grip on the controls!
I had this one. Always thought it was an elegant little model.
This is a nice little budget set. I usually buy these sets for the parts if I find a good deal on them.
I really like Octan. It's such a brilliant in-product brand, and there are so many nice vehicles that came out of it.
Oh careful how you say this one
Always good to see a childhood memory here in random sets!
Still got the pieces of this one around, I’ll be rummaging through the collection and find of of those Octan brand rotors to remind me
It's cute, it's Octan, it's Classic City, what more can you want?
Honestly though, as far as helicopters are concerned, this is quite a bad design. It doesn't make sense on so many levels.
I usually love sets from that era but this one I don't regret not getting back in the day.
I really miss small sets. I think there is an argument to be made, that with more smaller sets you can engage with a less wealthy audience. You can also introduce them to the Lego world way more efficiently because even those people can have a collection.
Exactly how many stunts can the average helicopter do?
@MCLegoboy said:
"Stunt Copter is right!
You'd have to be crazy to fly something with a blade that close to your head and hardly anything keeping you in your seat but your own grip on the controls!"
Like a Benson autogyro for example.
I have this! I bought it during the crazy two or three days where I thought (just coming out of my dark ages) I'd like to buy all the helicopters Lego has produced :)
This set is very similar to a few other helicopter sets I own, I kind of like the small helicopter sets since they are a lot of fun and can be seen as "Pocket Sets" that you can build anywhere at any time. Wait did I just say "BUILD THE HELICOPTER!!!" while I was talking? LEGO should make some small helicopter sets and use the meme to advertise for free, maybe even a helicopter theme would be nice!
Do a flip!
There's nothing like flying a small, unstable craft between mountains and across an oil rig! Truly a stunt to remember!
A classic! I always display it on the roof of my Octan station 6397.
Funny bit of trivia: the 1994 UK catalog (https://images.brickset.com/library/Catalogues/c94uk2.pdf) named and captioned this set as "Octan Scout - exploration helicopter", and 6341-1 (which was named "Gas 'N Go Flyer" in the United States) as "Octan Survey Team - refuels and takes off to continue exploring".
Not sure what the reasoning was for marketing these sets in such different ways in the United States and Great Britain? Let alone whether the designers created them with either stunts or oil surveying in mind.
Maybe they thought the extraction side of the oil industry was a bigger political controversy in the US than in the UK for some reason? Or maybe just that British kids would associate stunt flying more with prestigious aeronautics teams like the Red Arrows than "barnstormers" with corporate sponsors, so would be more likely to imagine these two sets as Octan work vehicles?
I'd be interested to see if anybody who was older than me back in '94 and had a better sense of cultural differences between the UK and US at that time has any light to shed on this! But considering how many years ago it was, I suspect all any of us can really do is speculate.
This was back when Octan needed crazy stunts to promote itself, I wonder if they still do.
A MAN HAS FALLEN INTO THE RIVER IN LEGO CITY! START THE NEW RESCUE HELICOPTER! HEY! BUILD THE HELICOPTER AND OFF TO THE RESCUE!
Ooo look a helicopter!!! Why doesn't LEGO make MORE of these?!
Hey I had/have this as a kid. Stickers didn't make it over the years...