You're listening to season nine of Mobile Suit Breakdown, a weekly podcast covering the entirety of Sci-fi mega franchise Mobile Suit Gundam, researching its influences, examining its themes, and discussing how each piece of the Gundam canon fits within the changing context in Japan and the world from 1979 to today. You.
This is episode nine point twelve, Featherless Biped, and we are your hosts. I'm Tom, and I'm very pleased with myself this week because it's not every day you get to make a truly new discovery about a nearly 40 year old TV show.
I really thought you were going to say that you were proud of yourself for actually writing a short research piece for once, even though you frequently say, I think it'll be a short one this week, and then it never is. This one actually short. I'm certainly proud.
AW, thank you.
And I'm nina and I've spent the past couple of days reliving one of my previous lives and am reminded of just how much I like being a podcaster mozu Breakdown is made possible by 712 paying subscribers. Thank you all for keeping us genki. No new patrons to thank this week. At this point, I imagine that everyone who's interested is either waiting for us to finish SD Gundam matsuri and move on to the next mainline series or is waiting for the Pin promotion. MSB is a very ambitious project. Nevertheless, I'm confident that we will catch up with Gundam's contemporary releases, even if it takes us decades to do it. But we are also an independent and ad free podcast, so our determination and, let's say, stubbornness is only half of it. The other half is your support. Every subscriber makes a big difference to a little podcast like ours. So if you want to hear our Gundam takes next year, five years from now, ten years from now, and beyond, become a subscriber today@gundampodcast.com. Patreon. And now Tom's research on the Homo Avus flying machine from Zeta Gundam.
Shortly before the events of Zeta Gundam's first episode, camille Badan was a normal, sociable, reasonably well adjusted high schooler with a bright future ahead of him. While we don't know exactly what happened to set him on the lonely and ill starred path of the protagonist, we do see a few hints about what his old life was like. He got good grades and was active in his school's karate club. He built and piloted petite mobile suits for local competition, winning the tournament that year. And for two years running, he'd also won the colony's Homo Avus tournament. The Homo Avus, as depicted in a photo in Camille's file, is an ultralight personal aircraft worn on the back like an oversized backpack. The name comes from the Latin word homo, meaning human, and avis, meaning bird. It looks like an airplane with no cockpit, no longer than a person is tall. The wearer operates the machine via a pair of pistol grip handlebars that come up under their arms and their ankles are held in place along the underside of the machine by a simple metal bar directly below the vertical stabilizer at the end of the tail. There's one or perhaps two engines on the back of the Homo avus, and its wings extend to either side. Its wingspan is between twice and three times the arm span of the human hanging underneath sete. The design drawings that animators use for reference when drawing the episode show it from different angles, and they confirm that it has a single jet engine mounted on the top of the machine around the middle of the pilot's back, and that there are two vertical rudders, one over each ankle. The Homo EVUS then makes a second appearance with a slightly different design in episode 14, when Katz and Amaro steal a Federation transport plane in order to join up with the survivors from the Jaburo raid. Arriving in the nick of time, Amaro decides to ram the cargo plane into Lieutenant Buran Blutark's ashimar and tells Katz to escape using the Homo avus. Presumably this was included in the plane's standard equipment as a kind of future parachute for in flight evacuations. Katz dons a machine nearly identical to the one depicted before and flies away from the larger aircraft. He flies by again at the end of the episode, and the Homo avus is included in the final, gorgeously painted freeze frame of the episode. Zetagundum, especially during this Earthbased arc, demonstrates a fascination with real and speculative aerospace technology, from the baluts used during the space drop portion of the Jaburo raid to Amaro's Edgely optica Hayato's XB 70 Valkyrie and Beltorchka's Beachcraft model 17. But as far as I know, no one has ever identified a real world origin for the Homovus until now. In the 1980s, the long running science and technology magazine Popular Mechanics featured a regular column called Technology Update that focused the spotlight on exciting new developments, like the construction of the first home in New Mexico entirely powered by photovoltaic cells, or a laser capable of producing pulses so quick that they are measured in femtoseconds. In the July 1982 issue, sandwiched between an article about retrofitting tugboats into sailboats to cut down on fuel costs and an advertisement for the new Isuzu MPG Plus pickup truck capable of getting as good as 49 miles per gallon on highways but not available in California, there is a one page article about a strap on plane. It opens someday. A kid may ask his father, what did you do in the war, Daddy? And Daddy may answer, I was a jet airplane. It could happen. All you have to do is put on the jet powered wing shown here, and you become a human airplane soaring off into the wild blue yonder at better than 100. Article features an illustration showing the design for the flying machine, as well as a photo of a smaller, simpler prototype that, according to the article, was in production at that moment and might fly as early as that very summer. Both look remarkably like the Homo avus that appeared in Zeta Gundam, from the posture of the pilot and those dual rudders to the pistol grip handlebars and the support bar holding the ankles in place under the tail. But more significant even than those design similarities is the name, because the young engineer and inventor behind the machine, Igor Dimitrovsky, called his new machine none other than Homo Avus. The article then makes a somewhat ominous illusion. Strap on wings have been a dream of man since the ill fated mythical flight of Icarus. Now a young engineer, Igor Dimitrowsky, has come up with a modern version, the ultimate in sophisticated technology that might just have a shot at success. Icarus may have blown his chance, but Dimitrowsky is taking steps to make sure that his Homoevis won't suffer a similar fate. Unfortunately, since none of us are flying to work using ultralight strapon airplanes, you can probably guess that Dimitrovsky's Homovus didn't really take off pause for laughter. Dimitrovsky and his invention appear several times in the archives of the New York Times. Once in 1981, in an article about the Worldwide International Inventors Expo of 81, where the homoevis is described as a winged jetpack and a replacement for the hang glider alongside an electric jar opener and a dashboard mounted device that ejects lit cigarettes so you don't have to take your eyes off the road. It came up again in April 1983, when a brief article in the paper noted that Dimitrovsky had obtained a patent for an aircraft attachable to the body of the pilot. Although the name Homovus did not appear in that article or in the patent, neither New York Times article is illustrated, and the illustrations in the patent look somewhat different from those in the magazine article. Considering the visual similarities and the identical name, there's really no doubt in my mind that not only is Zetagundam's Homoevis based on Dimitrovsky's design, but that it was also taken specifically from the July 1982 Popular Mechanics article. The idea for the Homoevis wasn't necessarily a bad one, although perhaps it was ahead of its time. Another aviation inventor, Yves Rossi, started working on a similar design for a jet powered human scale flying wing in 1993. Though it took more than a decade of iteration, a dozen prototypes and a few narrow escapes, by 2013, he was able to fly under his own power for ten minutes at a time, and he was maneuverable enough for formation flying with other planes. You might have seen him on Top Gear or Stanley's superhumans. By 2019, he was able to take off hover and land without external assistance. But the technology still has a long way to go before it's ready for high school level intramural competition. The story of Igor Dimitrovsky did not end with the failure of the Homo avus. Six years later, in 1989, a Queen's resident and entrepreneur named Igor Dimitrovsky sold his keffer distribution company and used the proceeds to found Baltia airlines, intending to operate regular direct flights between the JFK international airport and various cities in what was then the Soviet Union. In 1992, the 34 year old aviation entrepreneur was featured in the arguably prestigious 40 under 40 in Forbes magazine. I can't be 100% certain that this Igor Dimitrovsky is the same Igor Dimitrosky who patented the homo avus. But a 1991 New York times profile on him says that, quote in recent years, he has tried without success, to develop a new single pilot aircraft. Considering the uncommon name, the similar time frame, and the fact that both were running aviation startup companies based in the queensboro of New York City, I think it's extremely likely that the two are in fact one and the same, and that the failed single pilot aircraft mentioned in the article was none other than our homo avus. Things started well for Baltia airlines. They got the requisite authorizations from the US. Government and were preparing to purchase aircraft. But the collapse of the Soviet Union put their plans on hold. By 1996, Baltia had once again received permission to fly to St. Petersburg, but they couldn't get the capital together to purchase or lease a plane. The airline remained in stasis until 2009, when a fresh capital infusion allowed it to purchase a used Boeing 747 200. But the plane, originally built back in 1975, did not come with engines. A year later, Baltia purchased a second 747 200 and scrapped the first. The new plane then proceeded to fail the federal aviation administration's airworthiness evaluation seven times. Instead of flying to St. Petersburg, the plane sat parked at a regional airport in Ipsilante, Michigan, until 2018, when Baltia decided to scrap it too. At first, news articles about the airline had a hopeful tone baltia finally has a plane. Now they have two planes. Now they have their own livery. Now, after only a mere 24 years as a startup, they're training their first air crews. These shifted eventually to bemused puzzlement with titles like baltia, the oldest, newest airline that Isn't and then finally settled on cynical, derision Baltia airlines. You're drunk. Give up already? Is the end finally here for Baltia, america's oldest imaginary airline and the world's worst airline. In 27 years, it's never flown a single passenger. Dimitrovsky himself died in 20, 16, 62 years old. The airline he founded never did fly a plane or earn a penny of revenue, although it did raise millions from investors. It's still around today under a new name, and it still has never carried a single passenger. Dimitrovsky dreamed big, and he had the courage to pursue those dreams, but he lacked the resources, the skills, and perhaps the patience to bring them to fruition. I do wonder if he ever realized that his homovous jetpack idea became a small but permanent part of one of the biggest franchises in science fiction. Millions of people around the world have seen it fly, even if only in animation, and millions more will. That's not a bad legacy for a.
Dream dream or complicated tax fraud scheme.
You know, anything's possible.
The whole thing just sounds so fake, like I'm going to start an airline, but you don't have any capitalization. It takes you like a decade to even buy a plane. And once the regular airlines started flying to the Soviet union, what was the point? You're going to compete with all the major european airlines. I don't know. It sounds mad.
I think at various points in the course of the company's existence, they had a business model that could potentially have worked under some set of circumstances.
Yeah, I mean, the initial idea back before the soviet union broke up sounded like it had some potential because even though it was very difficult to travel to the Soviet union at that time from the United States, some people still wanted to. Some people would still get the special visas and permissions they needed and would still go there. And so having kind of a specialist airline for that sounded as though it made sense. It's just once it opened up, you lose that sort of specialist advantage.
I think a big part of it was that dimitrovsky himself was a latvian immigrant and wanted to fly flights to less well served, more regional cities in the Soviet union, like riga, like minsk.
Which are populous places with big diaspora populations in the United States, I imagine.
And I think part of the problem early on was dimitrovsky with his, I think, actually quite successful kefir distribution company, which at the time was even more of a specialty drink than it is now. He had been successful and had business experience and was quite wealthy. He just wasn't start your own airline wealthy, and understanding the difference in scale between those two things can be really difficult. That company has raised millions of dollars from investors. It's just that you need lots more than that to establish an airline, right?
I mean, what does a single airplane cost, even an old one?
With or without engines?
You a quick reminder that next week there will be no new episode since we will be out of town for a friend's wedding. But we will be back with episode 9.13 the following week. Until then, stay genki, folks.
You know, it would be easier to get to this wedding if we had jetpacks.
Would it, though?
Why, we could fly through the air at 100 mph with our luggage just well, I mean, I'll wear my suit and oh, I see you'll wear your suit.
We would commute back and forth every day. Yeah, I will need a very fetching helmet.
Mobile suit breakdown is written, recorded and produced by us, tom and Nina in scenic New York city within the ancestral and unceded land of the lenape people and made possible by listeners like you. The opening track is Wasp by Misha Dioxen. The closing music is Long Way Home by Spinning Ratio. You can find links to the sources for our research, the music used in the episode, additional information about the Lenape people and more in the show Notes and on our website, Gundampodcast.com. You can get in touch with us on Twitter or Instagram at Gundam podcast or by email to hosts@gundampodcast.com. And thank you for listening. And I'm Tom. Vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom.
I had a book of math and logic puzzles growing up called A Chicken from Minsk, and I think they were all, like, logic puzzles and brain teasers from Eastern Europe.
Icarus may have blown his chance, but Dimitrovsky is taking steps to make sure that his homovus won't suffer a similar fate. Speaking of pronunciation, I actually do need to check this because it's spelled like.
Dimitrowski, but those names yeah, could be a V sound. Could be. Yeah.
It's usually like an FV kind of hybrid, but he's Latvian, not Russian, so trixie. Yeah. I'm not even sure where to go to look up how to pronounce that. Love to have disabling. Anxiety disorder.
What happens, man? The podcast is closed today because one of our hosts was afflicted by paralytic anxiety. I just think that if a restaurant can be closed because the chef has malaise, the podcast can be closed because a host has anxiety.
If our podcast closed every time one of us had anxiety, we would never release an episode.
That's true.
Like when we say, oh, I could never go back to an office job, we don't mean that flippantly. Literally, I could not go back.
I'm going to make a joke about that in the intro. It was already written, by the way, before any of this happened. Serendipity.