Tracy Island

Tracy Island was the home of the Tracy family in the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson 1960s television series "Thunderbirds". Located in the South Pacific Ocean, the island's true function as the secret base of the International Rescue organisation was heavily camouflaged.

Thunderbird 1 launched from a hanger underneath the island's retractable swimming pool. The entrance to Thunderbird 2's hangar was concealed by a fake rock-face and lead onto the island's runway. On exiting the hanger, the palm trees lining the runway would swing outwards to accommodate Thunderbird 2's wingspan. After taxiing along the runway, Thunderbird 2 took off from a hydraulic launch platform. Thunderbird 3 launched from underneath the 'Round House'.

Whilst secure jamming equipment and less hazardous intruders preserved the island's security, it proved to be more at risk in the pages of TV Century 21 due to the machinations of The Hood. Learning everything about the island by brainwashing Brains and extracting all of his information regarding the island, the Hood launched his greatest attack, destroying the Thunderbird craft and many of their hangers with the exception of Thunderbirds One and Four. The canonicity of this storyline remains uncertain due to its roots in publication form only.

A re-run of the show on BBC2 in 1992 led to a shortage of Tracy Island models, and so the British children's programme "Blue Peter" demonstrated how to build a home-made version. The BBC was then, in its turn, overwhelmed by requests for copies of the instructions for making the model.

In the 2004 live action movie, North Island in the Seychelles island group (Indian Ocean) was the stand-in for Tracy island, with the buildings added using computer-generated imagery. In the film, the displayed plotted route from Tracy Island to London clearly shows the island as being located in the Atlantic Ocean, where in the original series it was in the Pacific Ocean. The Seychelles' North Island has since been sensitively developed to host an exclusive super-luxury resort and conservation project.

External links

* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/classic/bluepeter/makes/ "Blue Peter" factsheet]