The following is a list of land, air, sea and space vehicles that appear in the 1960s British Supermarionation television series Thunderbirds or its adaptations.
Thunderbird 1 is hangared beneath the main house on Tracy Island and launches vertically from a pad camouflaged by a swimming pool that slides aside.
It also carries a Skypod, a short-range flying capsule that allows Scott to get in close to a target where Thunderbird 1's size would be a disadvantage, as well as several remote-operated drones that can be deployed to search multiple areas or places that cannot be reached by conventional means.
It is piloted by Virgil Tracy, often accompanied by either Scott, Alan, Gordon or Brains, sometimes by Tin-Tin Kyrano, and on at least one occasion by Lady Penelope.
"[9] The launch sequence begins with Thunderbird 2 taxiing through a concealed hangar door disguised as a cliff face onto a runway flanked with palm trees that fall back to accommodate the large wingspan.
In "Terror in New York City", Thunderbird 2 is fired upon and crippled by the warship USN Sentinel and remains out of operation for the rest of the episode.
Since John is usually seen in Thunderbird 5, he is rarely seen piloting the spacecraft (only in "The Mighty Atom" and "Danger at Ocean Deep" and "The Uninvited", and never in a rescue situation).
The submersible is fitted with an adjustable searchlight which can be raised or lowered to reveal a variety of rescue instruments, such as cutting lasers, electromagnets, demolition rockets and battering rams, which can be extended from the nose section.
[22] The submersible appears in the 2004 film with an updated design, including space for two operators, larger cockpit windows, searchlights and two under-slung claws.
[26] Thunderbird 5 is equipped with almost completely automated onboard systems, allowing the entire station to be run by a single crew member.
The station has a holographic computer system, also present within the Tracy home as well as the other Thunderbirds, which allows John to have face-to-face conversations with the rest of the team and display information relevant to missions.
The entity – which was created by accident in the previous episode, "Runaway" – initially has a violent sense of self-preservation which leads to it seizing control of the station and attempting to kill John.
"[22] Dr Phillip Atcliffe, an aerospace engineer based at the University of Salford, has discussed the real-world viability of the Thunderbird designs.
[29] According to Theo de Klerk, none of the Thunderbirds seem to have adequate capacity for large amounts of fuel, or turbo generators to convert the heat from their nuclear reactors.
De Klerk considers Thunderbird 4 to have the least practical design of the fleet, stating that its non-cylindrical shape makes it ill-adapted to extreme underwater pressures.
[31] The Mole is notable for being one of the few pod vehicles to appear in more than one episode, featuring in "Pit of Peril", "City of Fire" and "The Duchess Assignment".
Brains sees all of his proposals rejected, but after Alan's restored de Havilland Tiger Moth plays a vital role in saving the occupants of the stricken airship Skyship One, he successfully pitches the biplane as the new "Thunderbird 6".
[22] Stephen La Rivière argues that while the plot twist may have been appreciated by adult viewers, it would not have pleased the target audience of children, who had been "waiting for the most fantastic piece of hardware to arrive" only to end up with "an old plane".
[40] John Marriott also criticises this story development, commenting that "the big screen was an unsuitable place for the gentle irony of steam-age technology scoring triumphantly over an array of fantasy machines.
Black in colour, it is a highly agile, VTOL-capable hypersonic stealth aircraft piloted by the organisation's Chief of Security Kayo Kyrano.
The cockpit section doubles as a high-speed "Shadow Bike" motorcycle which can be dropped to the ground from the craft's fuselage when aerial pursuit becomes impractical while remaining in remote control contact.
The ship features a pair of grappling claws in place of traditional landing gear, allowing it to perch on walls, ceilings, and other vehicles.
Additionally, Thunderbird Shadow is equipped with electromagnetic cables, a sonic cannon, and stealth mode "optical camouflage" cloaking technology, allowing it to appear invisible to the naked eye and radar.
The turntable then rotates 180 degrees so the nose faces up, just as the wall flips round to take the ship outdoors (the exterior is disguised as a rock façade of the island).
The machine is equipped with two large grabbing arms and a central chainsaw which cuts trees at the base before feeding them into a processing plant, where they are reduced to wood pulp for collection by tanker trucks.
"[46] The Fireflash, a hypersonic airliner, appears in "Trapped in the Sky", "Operation Crash-Dive", "The Impostors", "The Man from MI.5" and "The Duchess Assignment", as well as in a flashback sequence in "Security Hazard".
Fireflash has two decks, but also features luxury facilities such as a cocktail lounge housed within glazed sections of the wings' leading edges.
[49] At 50 metres (160 ft) long and weighing over 500 tons, the Sidewinder is slow and lumbering, but is capable of crossing terrain inaccessible to other land vehicles.
The vehicle was developed to prevent African "brushfire wars" from escalating into larger conflicts and is equipped with a significant amount of weaponry.
It is assembled hours before launch and consists of five parts: the Martian Excursion Vehicle (MEV; later renamed the Martian Exploration Vehicle); the main fuselage; Lifting Body 1 and 2, two wing-like structures that are loaded with thruster packs and incorporate landing gear at the ends; and a reflective nose cone, which attaches to the MEV.