'Little Nellie' Wallis WA-116 Agile Series 1 gyroplane

James Bond (Sean Connery) flies an autogyro aircraft nicknamed Little Nellie in the movie You Only Live Twice. This unusual machine was based on the Wallis WA-116 Agile, a British autogyro developed in the early 1960s by former Royal Air Force Wing Commander Ken Wallis.

Ken Wallis spent much of his life as a war hero, inventor and extraordinary engineer. He developed a number of variants of the autogyro aircraft, implementing several improvements to the design, including the offset gimbal rotor head which gives the autogyro hands-off stability. The first prototype autogyro, registered G-ARRT, was first flown on 2 August 1961. Five more WA-116s were built in 1962, three of which were for evaluation by the British Army Air Corps. In 1966, two modified WA-116s were used for the filming of You Only Live Twice. All the flying was done by Wallis with a WA-116 registered G-ARZB but an identical version, G-AVDH, had been fitted out the same way for other shots. Ken Wallis has owned the original G-ARZB ever since. A similar version was made for display at Planet Hollywood.

Several models of the Little Nellie were created by Corgi, in the scales 1:64, 1:50, 1:43 and 1:36, find a selection on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and eBay.

More about Ken Wallis:

Interview with Ken Wallis on Bondpix.com.

The Lives of Ken Wallis: Engineer and Aviator Extraordinaire (UK, paperback)

Ken Wallis Born to Bond (UK, DVD)

You Only Live Twice Little Nellie: The World of Ken Wallis and James Bond 007 (UK, paperback)

360 degree image of Ken Wallis and his creations

Sources: WikiPedia, Bondpix.com.