 By 1966 , Meddings ' commitments were split between Series Two and Thunderbirds Are Go . While Meddings worked on the film , camera operator Jimmy Elliott assumed the responsibility of directing the TV effects . By this stage , the basic frame of Thunderbird 2 had been damaged so many times that the model had needed to be rebuilt from scratch . Meddings was <unk> with the result , reflecting that the replacement was " not only the wrong colour , it was a completely different shape ... I never felt our model @-@ makers managed to recapture the look of the original . " 
