The 1986 Cobra Night Raven is an amazing display piece. Based on the classic "Blackbird" design, the plane is one of the most visually stunning pieces of the era. On the ground, it looks great. And, there's a lot of play features to load the plane up, set up the pilots and work on the various engines. But, once you button the plane up and want to play with it in the air, the Night Raven kind of sucks. It's huge, bulky and difficult to maneuver, especially for a kid. The Night Raven is one of those toys that is valuable in your imagination. But, in practicality, it's not a great toy to zip around with in the backyard. You couldn't hold both it and, say, a Skystiker to simulate air to air combat. And, with planes, that's the real value of the toys. So, as a kid, the Night Raver was a disappointing item. But, there is a neat little add on feature that solves for all of this. For some reason, the Night Raven included an attached drone that held a single pilot. There's no reason for this item to exist. But, it does. And, it provided all of the usefulness for the Night Raven in my childhood collection.
As a kid, I didn't much like aircraft. The reason was that, in reality, aircraft were the most valuable weapons to each side. And, from their planes, the factions could bomb or missile each other into oblivion with no real drama. I had an army of cool looking combat soldiers, jeeps, tanks and other oddball contraptions, though, that I wanted to fight each other. Having an aircraft come in and obliterate all the Hiss Tanks or Maulers just seemed boring and anti-climatic. So, I created circumstances where aircraft were largely useless. I worked out a scenario where the atmosphere had been made too thick for large planes to get off the ground. So, items like the Skystriker and Night Raven were difficult to use, expensive and not overly effective. What did work, though, was smaller, lighter aircraft that didn't have huge range and lacked the ability to carry devastating weapons. So, instead of a Night Raven bombing away an entire Joe base, I had Night Raven drones being used as glorified anti-infantry weapons. They had to fly close to the ground. And, their cannons were less powerful than those carried by most vehicles. They could be shot down by an infantryman with a standard weapon. And, with these guidelines in place, my aerial warfare was curtailed to toys that were more fun to play with than their larger, more realistic counterparts.
The drone was perfect because it could fit in one hand. In the other, you could have a Sky Hawk. And, you could then play out the most dramatic dog fight you could imagine. In short, the drone was able to deliver the aesthetic appeal of the entire Night Raven in a small package that you could take on car trips so you had something to do. The drone became the de facto aircraft for my Cobra forces. The following year, Cobra, officially, became the faction of drones when the Mamba drones entered my collection. I used them a bit differently. But, all the drones were Cobra's way of using a crop of expendable pilots to take out Joes.
One of the more memorable stories of my youth was G.I. Joe Special Missions #5. This was a dog-fight story. It was better suited to Special Missions than the main book. And, frankly, the story wasn't as good as the dog fight in G.I. Joe #34. So, moving it to a secondary book made the comparisons moot. But, the seminal moment of the story was when the Strato Viper realized he was trapped in the cockpit of his Night Raven as it sunk into the ocean. He was carried to the bottom of the sea where he got to slowly asphyxiate in a cramped coffin. This visual stuck with me. And, it became a scenario that would befall both Joe and Cobra pilots in my childhood adventures. Often the pilots would still have radio contact with the surface. So, the rescue crews could hear them dying. Other times, the divers would reach them in time. But, they would then make an error during the rescue and the cockpit would suddenly implode when the pressure finally proved stronger than the glass and steel. These adventures were a great way to combine air and sea figures and vehicles. And, were very popular with me for that reason.
Joe pilots wore airmasks. The Silver Pads Grand Slam (my childhood Sky Hawk pilot) wore Lifeline's air mask while in flight. So, when trapped under the water, they would survive longer. Usually, this allowed a hovercraft to reach them and winch them to safety. But, not always. Cobra's pilots were more expendable, though. They lacked the extra survival gear. So, it was less likely that their rescue teams would reach them before their air supply gave out. The more likely scenario was that the Joes would arrive first. And, they would endeavor to rescue the pilot. Not to save his life. But, instead, to gain a prisoner as a bargaining chip. The real plum, though, was an intact drone that could be studied for weaknesses. As most drones that were shot down simply exploded either upon impact or the fuel tank being breached by a bullet, it was rare for the Joe to get an intact specimen for study. The intact ships they could salvage from the bottom of the sea were valuable. But, if the pilots happened to run out of air before the wreck was pulled to the surface, the Joes weren't going to lose any sleep over it.
The drone has one large flaw: it has no landing gear. The drone was never intended to really fly on its own. And, as an add-in, it wasn't designed to stand on its own. So, there's no real way for it to land. As a kid, things like this would bother me. But, with high quality toys, I usually found a way around such limitations. And, the smooth underbelly of the drone allowed it to glide across my bedroom carpet. So, I could accept that the drone could land with no wheels and was designed to withstand a skidding across the terrain as the bottom of it dragged the drone to a halt through massive friction. More than once, a poor Strato Viper landed on terrain that was too rocky and either ended up as an end-over-end fireball or, was sliced to ribbons when he went through the windshield, head-first, when the drone stopped too abruptly on a piece of debris. To account for small takeoff spaces, I had the drones designed to take off by flying in circles on the ground. Here, they built up speed until they could get enough lift to fly away. It was a dumb moment. But, it allowed the drones to operate in far more areas and be far more effective.
My real final adventure with the drone was when I finally decided to use the Night Raven. With it, I'd have the drone attempt on in flight docking onto the larger planes back. These would be high tension moments as any wrong move would end both ships. Sometimes, the drone was be successful. Other times, it would turn off its engines, but not actually lock into place. The poor drone pilot would then freefall to a fiery end unless he could restart the engines while in freefall. The final scenario was the catastrophe. Here, the drone would make an error and the entire Night Raven would be destroyed. I imagined that the little drop down cockpit on the Night Raven had parachutes inside it that could be deployed in the event of disaster. So, as the drone pilot killed himself, the Night Raven pilots could safely eject. Or, in many cases, eject and discover in their own freefall that the parachutes didn't deploy. Being a pilot in my childhood collection was a rough life.
In my early collecting days, I had designs on getting a small army of drones. But, that never came to pass. And, the two I had in my collection never really got used. My acquisition of a Firebat pretty much ensured that the drone was never going to be used again. So, my drones are mostly packed away. They aren't great to photograph. So, that really limits any use I might find for them. They're one of those toys that I've simply outgrown. The memories are still there. But, today, I'd be hard pressed to think of a time I've actually used just the drone aside from the one time I took in out for photos you can see below.
The Night Raven drone actually has a bit of history. It was used with the Night Raven. But, then, in 1989, it was slightly modified and ported over to Joe. This repainted, white version was included with the 1989 Crusader space shuttle. The drone was meant to be an ancillary spacecraft that supported the shuttle. In this context, it kind of works. The drone is space-agey enough to pass as a small shuttle. And, Joe always stretched the realms of realism (despite the lamentations of many fans). So, it was a solid addition to the updated shuttle. As the Night Raven drones evolved, there are construction variants on it, too. Some of the connector tabs are different. Some that work better are also more prone to breakage. But, if you amass enough of these drones, you'll spot a few differences in the mold.
Night Ravens are an iconic piece of the Joe line. As such, dealers will try to sell high quality versions for over $200. Left to the market, the real price is slightly more than half of this, though. The Night Raven was produced in massive quantities and isn't hard to find. Even the smallest pieces are readily available. It's not all that easy to find drones on their own. If you can, complete ones will run in the $20-$30 range. Really, that's a solid price for a neat toy that can stand on it's own. But, you're probably better off just buying a full Night Raven to get the experience the entire toy brings. Then, you can take off the drone to your heart's content. For me, the value in the drone are the memories it holds. Without those, you might find more limitations from the design.
