James Bond Gyrocopter ‘Little Nellie’ ‘You Only Live Twice’
The ‘Little Nellie’ autogyro is a small one person aircraft, fully fitted out with a powerful selection of gadgets by Q Branch. Flown on an armed reconnaissance mission by James Bond in You Only Live Twice, Little Nellie is forced to prove its mettle when it is engaged by helicopters operated by SPECTRE.
In reality, ‘Little Nellie’ is actually an example of the Wallis WA-116 Agile autogyro. Developed in the 1960s by Ken Wallis, a former Wing Commander in the Royal Airforce, over ten examples of the aircraft were built, with different variants offering several alternative engines options. One example was even built to seat two people. Five of the WA-116s were built by Beagle Aircraft based in Shoreham in the United Kingdom, and one of these examples was modified for use in You Only Live Twice.
