 This will either be glorious or it could be a very expensive disaster, so cross your fingers, here it goes. Hello everybody hooded Cobra Commander 788 here and I'm back with another vintage GI Joe toy review. Last time we looked at the Jump Jet Pack, a toy that would allow you to pretend that your GI Joe action figures could fly. But in 1983 Hasbro introduced a toy that could actually allow your action figures to fly. Sort of. I'm talking about the 1983 GI Joe Falcon Glider. This is the 1983 Falcon Glider with its pilot grunt. This thing is fragile. If the very concept of fragility could be distilled into a single physical object, this would be it. It is not made of any material as solid and sturdy as cardboard, no no, this thing is made out of foam. This thing is so fragile, its favorite 80s cartoon is fragile rock. This thing breaks so easily, its favorite 80s movie is Break into Electric Boogaloo. Okay enough of that. The Falcon Glider was sold in 1983 and in 1984. It was discontinued in 1985 and it didn't really have a replacement in 1985 unless you consider the parachute pack that came out in 1985 as a replacement for this. Hasbro never neglected to give kids the opportunity to break their toys by throwing them in the air. There was a Cobra version of this toy called the Viper Glider. It was essentially the same toy except it was blue instead of green. Of course it had Cobra stickers and a different action figure. The names Falcon and Viper were reused on later toys and why not? The names Falcon and Viper are just too cool to be wasted on these flimsy pieces of foam. Now I did have one of these when I was a kid, but I don't remember very much about it. Apparently I didn't play with it for very long and I'm sure it broke. That's the story you hear from a lot of people who had these as kids. From what I understand these were not very popular toys when they were out and I've heard that stores were practically giving these away by the end of its run. And it's kind of easy to understand why they were not popular. They were extremely flimsy. Nowadays if you want to get a Falcon Glider or a Viper Glider you're going to shell out quite a bit of cash. These are now very rare. Not a lot of them survived the 30 years since they first came out. I feel very fortunate to have this one in my collection. I have two of them. The Falcon Glider did appear in the G.I. Joe comic book but it was not piloted by Grunt. It was piloted by Airborne. Let's take a closer look at the Grunt action figure a bit later so I'm going to set him aside for now. This particular glider does have some damage and a previous owner repaired some of it with some scotch tape. But even with a little bit of damage here this is still in pretty good condition considering how many of these were completely destroyed 30 years ago. Let's look at the parts of the Falcon Glider and the Falcon Glider had a three prong clip that hooked onto the front end and it fit in these holes here on the body of the glider. The top two prongs went on the top side and the middle prong went underneath. And this clip here, first of all it provided a bumper for when the glider hit the ground. It didn't hit the ground directly on the foam. And it has a peg here on this side that would fit in the back of the action figure to hold the action figure on. And this peg actually works pretty well. It holds the figure on remarkably well. The Falcon had two rudders. The blueprints called these vertical stabilizers. And there was one on each side. They were also made out of foam. They were the same shape but they're not identical. The camouflage pattern is on the opposite side. So if you need to get one of these vertical stabilizers, you're going to have to make sure that you get either the left or the right one, whichever one you need. To place the vertical stabilizer onto the body of the glider, you just put the tab and the slots here. And it's best to kind of slide it in forward like that. And there you go. Be extremely cautious when you're putting those in and taking them out. This foam is so fragile it really wants to tear on you. So just be very, very careful when you do anything with this glider. There is one part missing on this Falcon glider. I can't show it to you because I don't have it. It came with a small black rubber band. And that rubber band would fit on this center prong. And it would go right here where this recess is. And it was to just provide a little additional support for the action figure to hold the action figure on. That brings us to the main body of the glider. And the top side has a very nice camouflage pattern. The underside is blank except for a couple of stickers. And these stickers are paper stickers. So if you watched my review of the 1983 GI Joe headquarters, you know that these paper stickers have some significant downsides. They're subject to yellowing. They dry out. They crack. They rip off. And so there really are some problems associated with these paper stickers. To show you how bad these paper stickers can be, take a look at what has happened to the paper stickers on my other Falcon glider. It's horrible. You can see why I hate these things. Let's talk about the features of the Falcon glider. First of all, it could fly. Or really it could glide. But that's a pretty major feature. People who own this as a kid have differing opinions on whether or not it did that job very well. On this clip, it has what the blueprints call two 30 caliber rapid fire mini machine guns. And honestly, I don't even remember these being on there when I was a kid. They don't really stand out. I think Hasbro was just trying to find some way to put some weapons on this thing. When the Falcon glider appeared in the comic book, it didn't really have weapons. A pilot would use his rifle and shoot at whoever he wanted to shoot at, but the glider itself didn't have any weapons. The back end of the glider had these flaps. You might be able to see them a little bit better on the other side. These flaps, which you were supposed to be able to bend in order to make the glider do some tricks and some loops when you threw it. I would highly recommend that you not try to bend these flaps if you have a Falcon glider. Just don't do it. They will crack off. As far as a real world counterpart, hang gliders do exist. But I've tried to find an example of military use of hang gliders and I haven't really found anything. So I don't think that this represents a real military vehicle. Real hang gliders don't really look like this. The military did use glider planes in World War II, but they don't really have any relation to this type of glider. So this doesn't really represent a real world vehicle. It is designed to be a functional toy with action figures. There is a variant with the blueprints for the Falcon glider. These are the blueprints, and as you can see, they are not blue. Normal GI Joe blueprints that had the instructions on the back looked like this, this one for the Sky Striker. And as you can see, they are printed in blue ink. The blueprints for the Falcon glider, however, were printed in green ink. And this was a variant. I know for a fact that some of these blueprints were printed in blue ink, so you do get some with green and you get some with blue. I have no idea why some of them are green and some of them are blue, and I don't know why they would print these in green. Of all of the GI Joe vehicles to have a different color for the blueprints, why this one? I really don't know. Let's take a look at the action figure. This is grunt, and this grunt is essentially a recolored version of the 1983 grunt. I don't have the 1983 version. This is the 1982 version of grunt. The 1983 version would have looked exactly like this, but with a different waist piece and it would have had the swivel arms like this. So, for the Falcon glider, they took the 1983 version of this figure, which was green, and they recolored him this tan color. So, this grunt is referred to as tan grunt. Let's look at tan grunt's accessory, and he came with only one, a helmet. It was a tan version of the standard helmet, essentially identical to the green helmet that came with the first version of grunt, except it was colored tan to match his new uniform. Let's look at grunt's articulation. He had the typical articulation for 1983 GI Joe action figures, which meant that he could turn his head from side to side. He could lift his arm up at the shoulder about so far, and he could swivel it all the way around. He had a hinge at the elbow, so he could move at the elbow about 90 degrees. He had a swivel at the bicep, so he could swivel his arm all the way around. The action figure was held together with a rubber O-ring that looped around the inside, so he could move at the torso a little bit. He could move his legs apart about so far. He could move his leg at the hip about 90 degrees, and he could bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's look at the sculpt of grunt, and like I said, he is just a recolored version of the original grunt. He's got kind of an older-looking face here, kind of a severe expression. He has brown hair. He has a collar that looks like a ridge collar there. He has straps with a grenade and a knife with silver, and that's a nice paint app there. I like the silver. The straps continue to the back in this Y pattern. He has pouches on his arms. Now, the 1982 version of grunt had those pouches on the side of the arm. The 1983 swivel arm version of grunt moved those patches over to the front, and that's what this is a copy of. Those patches are now on the front of his arms. He has the thinner waist piece that was introduced in 1983. He has some pouches on his legs, one there, one there, and he has some pretty standard boots. Let's look at the color of grunt, and this tan coloring is interesting. The original version of grunt is often considered the most generic looking of the 1982 G.I. Joe characters. He was basically just your green army man, but he got this update here with the tan coloring, and I have to admit it makes him look a lot more interesting. He was the first one of the original G.I. Joe action figures that they recolored like this. In 1984, we would get a tan version of clutch, who was the driver of the vamp Jeep, but grunt kind of set the trend there. I have to ask, why tan? Tan, this tan color, you would expect more for a desert camouflage. It doesn't really have anything to do with flying. It doesn't match the Falcon glider at all. The Falcon glider is a light green with a black camouflage. He just doesn't go with that toy, and I don't understand if they were going to recolor grunt why they went with this particular color. Another question is, why grunt? Why did Hasbro choose grunt to come with this toy? Grunt is an infantry soldier. He's a ground pounder. He should have his boots on the ground. You just don't associate grunt with flying things. That's why I think it made a lot more sense in the comic book to pair the Falcon glider with Airborne. Let's take a look at the file card. This file card was printed on the back of the box that the Falcon glider came in. There's nothing on the other side. It's just the back of a box. You can see the portrait of grunt is from the artwork that would have been on the front of the box for the Falcon glider. The text on this card is almost identical to the original green grunt's file card, except of course up here it says Falcon Pilot instead of Infantry Trooper. Also under secondary military specialty, it adds Falcon Pilot that was not on the original file card. And then down here it adds this line where it says he graduated from Falcon glider school. That line was not on the original card either. I think it's interesting that apparently there are enough Falcon gliders out there that they need an entire school for them. Up here it says Falcon Pilot codename grunt, file name Robert W. Graves, primary military specialty infantry, secondary military specialties, Falcon Pilot, small arms armorer, and artillery coordinator, birthplace Columbus, Ohio, and his grade is E4. This section says familiar with all NATO and Warsaw Pact small arms as well as domestic civilian arms, graduated Falcon glider school, advanced infantry training, finished top 10 of his class, qualified expert M14, M16, M1911A1 auto pistol. This quote down here says grunt is a highly motivated, systematic individual. He's a stand up guy who doesn't blow his cool in a firefight. That's it? This file card tells you almost nothing about the person that grunt is supposed to be. You get very little of his background. Mostly what it's describing is his job, not him as a person. I think it's kind of sad. Grunt gets no love at all. In his original green form he was the most generic figure on the G.I. Joe team. In fact, he just looks like a generic army man. Grunt is not an army builder. He is an individual. He has his own name. But the G.I. Joe mythos just doesn't seem to make very much room for grunt to have a personality. I think I should start a grunt fan club and maybe get some grassroots movement going to get this guy some better treatment. It's true grunt, you get no respect. You and me, grunt, we're going to fight the system. Watch this video and say to your curiosity but don't go throwing around your falcon glider. It is very fragile. I am doing this so that you don't have to. I'm using the falcon glider that has the bad stickers because it also doesn't have any cracks in it and I'm using, instead of grunt I'm using airborne which I thought was appropriate. This is an extra airborne. This is not the main airborne that I keep for display. So let's go ahead and try this. This will either be glorious or it could be a very expensive disaster. So cross your fingers. Here it goes. I would call that a successful flight. We can now answer the question does it fly? Yes, the falcon glider can still fly. There's no structural damage thing. God, sticker came off but that was almost off anyway and there you have it. I will never do that again and don't you ever do that either? That was my review of the 1983 falcon glider and it's pilot grunt. I hope you enjoyed this video and if you're thinking of getting a falcon glider I hope you found this video informative. If you liked this video go ahead and give it a thumbs up and don't forget to subscribe. I've got a lot of great new GI Joe toy and comic book reviews coming up and you do not want to miss them. And don't forget if there's a vintage GI Joe toy that you'd like for me to review make sure you leave a comment on the YouTube video and I will get to it as soon as I can. Thank you.