 Hello everybody, HoodedCoverCommander788 here, and this is my first video since I returned from Joe Kahn in Springfield, Illinois. It was great to see some of you there, and for my first video back, I wanted to do something big. Not that big, but still big. We're going to look at the 1984 GI Joe hovercraft, The Killer Whale, and its driver, Cutter. Check out that monster, is that big enough for you? This is the Killer Whale, sometimes just called the Whale, it is a hovercraft, and the word Whale is an acronym that stands for Warrior Hovering Assault Launching Envoy, which makes no sense, but they just had to throw some random words together to make an acronym that spelled Whale. Heaven forbid we have a vehicle name that isn't an acronym, we can't have that. The Killer Whale was introduced in 1984, which is surprisingly early in the 80s GI Joe run for such a large vehicle. It was also sold in 1985, it was discontinued in 1986. In 1992 to 1993, it was briefly available as a mail away from Hasbro Direct. In 1986 when the Killer Whale was discontinued, there was not a comparable watercraft replacement. There was the Devilfish, but that was quite a bit smaller. As far as a landcraft, since the Killer Whale was a hovercraft and it could go on land too, there was the Havoc that came out that year, but it was slightly smaller, I'm not sure you would consider that to be a replacement for this. In 1988 the Killer Whale was remoulded in different colored plastic and redubbed the Night Striker as part of the Toys R Us exclusive Night Force line. It was worth six flag points, which is a lot of flag points, but it was a very large vehicle and it came with an action figure, Cutter, I'm going to take a closer look at Cutter and his file card a little later so I'm going to set them aside for now. As far as a real world analog for the Killer Whale, I think it most resembles the PACV, the Patrol Air Cushion Vehicle used by the US Navy in the Vietnam era. The Whale would be bigger than the PACV, it's kind of a beefed up version of that vehicle, but I do think it is very reminiscent of that design. Let's look at the parts and features of the Killer Whale, starting as we usually do with the front. Here in the front we have the Recon Sled Landing Ramp and there are some variants of this ramp, some of them have a small notch in them like this one, some of them have a larger notch and some of them have no notch at all. Now I only have one version of this, I do like to show variants to you when I can, but that kind of variant where it's really just a difference in the notch like that, that's not very interesting to me so I don't usually seek them out. You open the ramp just by pulling down at the notch and this ramp is frequently broken, especially at these little knobs where it connects to the vehicle itself. Those are often broken off, in fact they are broken on mine, I've done a little home repair job replacing the plastic knobs with metal ones. The ramp houses the Recon Sled which fits inside there and it is spring loaded, it's operated by a button here on the top, you just press the button and it shoots the Recon Sled out. The Recon Sled is made up of four parts, there's the main body, there's the canopy and this canopy does not stay on well, in fact it pops off every time I launch the Recon Sled and underneath there are wheels, there's a front set of wheels and a back wheel. You can put a figure in the Recon Sled, you just slide them in there, he's supposed to go in face down and you put the canopy over him, he doesn't peg in, there's no seat belt or anything like that so he's just loose like that. You can put the Recon Sled back in the bay where it goes and just kind of feel the spring in there and you push it back until it clicks and then of course you can launch it with the figure on board. You can see it doesn't really go quite as far with the figure on there, it's a bit heavier. Some of these old springs are not as strong as they used to be but the canopy did stay on a little bit better that time. This is a look at the inside of the Recon Sled bay and those two white tabs right there, those are connected to the spring and that's what you push back to load the spring so you can launch the Sled. Here's the Recon Sled float, yeah that float's not too bad on its own, what about with a figure on it, yeah actually it still floats fairly well. The next part is this loading ramp which you just flip forward and this is two parts, there's the outer part that's kind of part of the hull and this inner ramp part here and those are separate and they can come loose, this can come off so if you're looking for a killer whale, you want to buy one, make sure you take a look and make sure this is there because if you're just looking at it from the outside you can't really tell, you don't want to be missing that part. Next we have the canopy and you have to move the guns aside in order to flip the canopy up and this canopy has a clear plastic piece here that works like a windshield and that is another frequently missing part, it took me a while to get that part so I could really complete this whale so watch out for that as well, you'll see a lot of them with that missing but there is supposed to be something there, that's not just an open window. With the ramp down and the canopy up we can take a closer look at the troop carrying compartment which looks really nice, it's very roomy, lots of space in there, there's some nice details sculpted in all around that looks really good and we have some foot pegs and it looks like this is intended to accommodate four figures with one foot peg per foot so for both feet of the figure, usually if you have foot pegs it's just one foot peg for each figure but it looks like they wanted to give you a way to secure the figure in a little bit better in this. It's nice that they put foot pegs in there, you can stand the figure up and blow torches in here kind of demonstrating how you can do that but some of the foot pegs are actually kind of deep in there and it's not so easy to get a figure pegged in, to be honest though when we were kids the way we would put troops in here was more like this, ready to go. Here of course we have the button that operates the spring load is sled and on either side here we have 105 millimeter pounder cannons and these are really huge, they're like tank cannons, they're big cannons and they actually have a cap here on the end, that's a separate piece that's not molded in and often you will find these end pieces on the cannons missing, they do elevate a little bit, they do not traverse, however they're held in by these pieces here and the tabs on these pieces can tend to either break or wear down so they don't hold them in very well and they'll just pop out like that. On the sides we have some additional clear plastic window panes here and we have this pretty sweet logo of an orca also known as a killer whale but you shouldn't call it a killer whale because that's racist. Up at the top here we have these really sweet twin crows nest gun turrets with 1.75 inch thrasher anti-aircraft guns, these are listed on the blueprints as anti-aircraft guns but in the comic books they were used both as anti-aircraft guns and anti-personnel guns which is fine I guess, they're pretty powerful guns and they'll poke holes in pretty much anything you shoot at. There is no seat inside the turret for the action figure, they just slide in and their feet stick directly down into the troop carrying compartment on the inside and the turrets they do traverse not all the way around but part of the way, they traverse pretty far and they do elevate also, they don't elevate very far and the guns are held onto the turret with some clips and those clips can break so watch out for that. I usually display the killer whale with blowtorch and bazooka manning the turrets, they are brightly colored, they're kind of making themselves big targets so I figured at least they'll be partially protected in the gun turrets and they can make themselves useful by firing at enemy aircraft and such. On both sides you have removable engine covers, you pull those off and you have some engine detail, so far the killer whale has been more or less symmetrical with the same features on both sides but we do get to some asymmetrical features as we move toward the back. On both sides we have these missile boxes which the blueprints call quad tube surface to air missile launchers, they do elevate and they can pivot at that point right there so they do turn a bit as well, they don't turn all the way around but they can turn a bit. The boxes are connected to this bar by a set of teeth and those teeth are easily broken that's another frequently broken part and if one of those teeth breaks off the box doesn't really fit on right anymore so that's something you definitely have to watch out for and if you're taking these boxes off of the bar frequently you're going to have to really watch out for that and make sure you don't break those teeth, in fact if you get them on I would recommend just leaving them on. Each missile box has four missiles and the missiles are identical so we can just take a look at one of them, they're fairly plain missiles in kind of a light gray or slightly off white color and this is a fairly soft plastic, this is not the same hard plastic that the vehicles made out of so they do give and bend just a little bit. Over time these missile boxes can become very loose and they won't stay up like they used to, they'll kind of flop down like that, there's probably a way to fix that I haven't really gotten around to it yet but you know that's something to watch out for. In the missile pod we have the driver compartment which the blueprints call the flying bridge command post, it's kind of a conning tower, it's elevated above the gun turrets, it has a glass windscreen around it and you can see it has some pretty good sculpted detail in there, it has a control panel and that's a separate piece there, that's another thing you need to watch out for because that can be missing and if you're looking on eBay you may not be able to see down inside there to know that it's there, watch out for missing control panels. Again there are foot pegs in there to accommodate two action figures, one peg per foot and you can put cutter in there and once he's pegged in he actually stands in there pretty well, pretty solidly. Here's what the driver compartment looks like from the front and the sides, you can see cutter in there piloting the ship, there is no pilot seat, the captain of the ship stands while operating the vehicle, one thing that strikes me as kind of odd is it doesn't have any easy path of ingress or egress for this driver compartment, the driver is going to have to climb over something in order to get in there, there's no ladder or stairs or steps or hatch or anything like that, which is a little bit odd, often Hasbro thought of that kind of thing when designing these vehicles. Behind the bridge we have the mechanism that operates the spinning fan blades, you push that down and both fan blades will spin at the same time. Looking at it from the back you can see how the double fan spinning action feature works, you just push down on this lever and it spins both fans, that's pretty cool. Now we'll get to some of the asymmetrical features, on the starboard side we have depth charges with a depth charge launcher, this launcher has a handle on there, essentially you just lift it up and it should let one of the depth charges drop out, it's a little bit tight on mine so it doesn't always work too well, but that's how it's supposed to work, you're supposed to swing it forward it drops another one into place, it's hard to get mine to work the way it's supposed to, it should just drop that right out of there and that just never seems to work on mine. These depth charges are pretty simple and basic, they have danger stickers on either end and they're basically just barrels, these of course would be anti-submarine weapons, there's enough space on the back here for five depth charges but oddly enough the killer whale came with six depth charges and that's pretty odd, I don't know why they gave you an extra one, they certainly didn't give you any extra missiles for the Skystriker or anything like that, reload the depth charges by just rolling them down this ramp, there's nothing that holds them in so if you jostle this vehicle around too much those will fall out. Do the depth charges float? Yes they do. In the back we have this cowling that goes around the fans and attached to those we have the steering vane assembly, of all the easily broken parts on this vehicle, these vertical steering vanes are probably the most frustrating, it's very difficult to find unbroken steering vanes and like this side is unbroken, it looks good, this side however is broken and I've just kind of done a temporary repair job for the moment, at some point I'll do something more permanent or I'll replace those but we do have broken steering vanes on this side and that is very common. Allegedly you can move these vertical steering vanes but here's the thing, don't, they're way too fragile, just leave them alone. The horizontal steering vanes however do move pretty easily and there's no real danger of breaking those. On the port side we have the surveillance cycle which is like a little mini motorcycle and I honestly think it's a little bit funny looking, it's small, this is something that is often forgotten, it doesn't clip in, it doesn't attach or anything, there's just a couple indents here to hold it in and this is another thing that will easily just fall out if you jostle the vehicle around too much and so since this is a completely separate sub vehicle, this is one that a lot of collectors may even forget about. The surveillance cycle is made up of four parts, we have the main body, we have the handle bars that are connected to the front fork, we have the front wheel and we have the back wheel. Here's what the surveillance cycle looks like with a figure on board and that honestly looks kind of goofy, it's too small, it looks like a moped. All the way around the vehicle we have this hover skirt molded in black and this of course is what makes it a hover craft so it can go on land as well as in the water. The hover skirt is a bit wider than the main body of the vehicle which increases the footprint of the killer whale quite a bit, it is a very large vehicle. Since the killer whale is a toy hover craft it needs a way to move on land so on the bottom it has wheels, it has four wheels and each one is on a caster, each one can independently spin around as well as roll and that is kind of cool, it gives the whale the ability to have this kind of gliding motion where it can kind of move in all directions. Also on the underside is this storage compartment, this lid comes off and you can store things in there. What you are intended to store in there I can't really say, I guess you could put accessories or even figures in there if you wanted to. Now these parts the storage compartment cover and the wheels are on the underside of the vehicle so you might not be looking for those when you're thinking of buying a killer whale so just make sure that you check the underside and see that all of these are there. It's not such a big deal if it's missing the compartment cover but if it's missing one of the wheels it's not going to roll properly. Does the killer whale float? Yes it floats very very well, it floats well despite the fact that the recon sled compartment is pretty open and would let water in there but that doesn't seem to really do anything to the floating ability at all, it floats extremely well. Now let's look at Cutter the action figure that came with the killer whale and Cutter is appropriately named after a type of ship. A Cutter is a small ship usually a single masted ship that is designed for speed and that in no way describes the boat that he actually drives. Cutter did not come with any accessories so let's go ahead and look at his articulation. Cutter had the typical articulation for 1984 GI Joe action figures that means he could turn his head from left to right like that. He could move 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 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 sculpted design and color of Cutter starting with his head and you can see on his head he has a very prominent Boston red socks cap and he has looks like kind of brownish red hair and the Hasbro designer Ron Rudat who designed Cutter said he modeled this face after a Boston red socks player Dwight Evans. On his chest Cutter has a very prominent orange life vest it's very bright you can't miss it and under that he has a light blue shirt with an open collar and this light blue plastic does tend to turn somewhat yellow with age which actually gives it a somewhat green tent. Now the plastic on this one the blue plastic on the chest is still pretty blue that looks pretty good not much yellowing but on the back of this action figure you can see there has been some yellowing some yellowing has occurred there and it has a slightly green tent so that is something you will have to watch out for if you're looking to get a Cutter action figure. His arms feature rolled up sleeves and he has a green watch on his right wrist on his waist piece he has a green belt and it has some pouches on it has some nice detail has some belt loops there that continues around to the back and that looks pretty good and he has some back pockets back there he's wearing blue bell bottom trousers and on his left leg he has a green pistol holster and with the pistol being on his left leg and the watch being on his right wrist this suggests that Cutter is left-handed other than the green holster the legs are pretty plain and he has some fairly plain looking black boots looking at the figure overall it is very colorful with the bright orange life vest and the the blue on the rest of the figure it gives it a nice contrast with the very green and black killer whale so Cutter really stands out when he's driving it also this gives us an opportunity to have a figure that has some color to it it is possible to have a military toy line that includes colors other than green and brown and you can do it in a way that makes sense so it really makes sense that Cutter is wearing a bright orange life vest so if you want color in an action figure this is how you do it in a way that makes sense as opposed to something like ice cream soldier let's take a look at Cutter's file card and this file card would have been an insert inside the box that the killer whale came in it was not printed on the back of the box it was an insert like this and as you can see it was just a card you could cut this out but this one of course is uncut it's still blank on the other side nothing on the other side it has this factionist GI Joe and it has a nice portrait of Cutter here it says he's the hovercraft pilot his codename is Cutter his file name is Skip A Stone that is terrible um Larry Hama the writer of the GI Joe comic book uh was writing these file cards at the time and sometimes he would put a kind of a joke name in and this has to be one of the worst Skip A Stone uh that's a real groaner the only one that might be worse is maybe Albert Pine his primary military specialty is hovercraft captain and it's not referring to captain as his rank uh that is his position as the commander of the ship uh his secondary military specialty is special services and in parentheses it says coach the women's swimming team at Annapolis and that probably has a really interesting story behind it his birthplace is kinsley kansas again nowhere near boston and his grade is lieutenant jg that's lieutenant junior grade i don't know why they listed his rank here instead of his pay grade as they usually do on these file cards if anybody's interested lieutenant junior grade is the equivalent of an o2 the rest of the file card is divided up into three sections and this top section says Cutter badgered his congressman for two years to get into Annapolis this is referring to the us naval academy uh in Annapolis Maryland then realized his family lacked two essential ingredients power and influence opted for the coast guard academy instead so Cutter is a coast guard man not a naval officer this middle section says wanted a life at sea even though hometown was as far away from either ocean as you can get exactly 1561 miles from san francisco and new york city his iron will and contrary nature laced with a truly bizarre sense of humor might explain why this bottom section says found out the joe team didn't have any coast guardsman raised such a stink that the coast guard top brass had to pull every string necessary to fix it it also gave the brass a way to get Cutter out of their hair this file card depicts a person who is very determined tenacious and maybe even stubborn and i kind of admire that Cutter is somebody who simply will not take no for an answer taking a look at the killer whale overall one thing that impresses me is the green color which is not an obvious choice for a watercraft like this it suggests that it's intended to operate on the land just as often as it operates in the water and that means it fits perfectly well with your other gi joe land vehicles and that i think is really impressive this thing is not going to just run alongside the devil fish but this thing will roll alongside the mobat tank and the mauler and the awestriker in a previous video i already compared the killer whale to the cobra watercraft that also came out in 1984 the cobra water moccasin and how this was not really a fair fight however in 1985 we got the cobra moire hydrofoil and this thing is much bigger than the cobra water moccasin and much more of a match for the killer whale even though the cobra moire is still slightly smaller than the killer whale it has a lot more armament than the cobra water moccasin it has a ton of guns and missiles and it has something that the killer whale and the cobra water moccasin lack and that is speed take a look at the killer whale from the front and imagine how terrifying it would be to have this thing coming directly at you with all its guns blazing it has a lot of firepower facing forward however take a look at the killer whale from the back none of its armaments traverse to face aft the killer whale would be vulnerable to attack from behind so the best cobra vehicle to go up against it would be one that is fast and maneuverable like the cobra moire it's hard not to love this vehicle there's nothing subtle about the killer whale it is huge it impresses for size if for nothing else and of course it's loaded with play features it's got lots of guns lots of things that move around it's got a troop carrying compartment missiles it's just loaded the playability of this thing is just so great that you can still do a lot with it even with a lot of the little bits missing i know when we played with this as kids we still had it on pretty much every mission even when there were no missiles left and no depth charges left there's still a lot that you can do with it i seem to remember we played it a little bit fast and loose with the hovering ability when we were kids and at some point it may have been given the ability to fly and may have been used to fight cobra rattlers and helicopters in the air that may not have been technically possible according to science but we were nine years old i love everything about this vehicle and when i say love i really mean love in fact there's something that i've been wanting to do and i hate to put you on the spot like this killer whale uh on camera but i just have to know will you