Let’s take a look at all of January’s feature images. That’s quite a selection! Looking to even more variety of media in February, including sculptures of aircraft, and aircraft as sculptures, and some guest spots from friends and colleagues. Note: I’ve (as yet) been unable to link the images to the page, so in the…
Month: January 2019
Empire Boat Cutaway
Our last post of January, and a special one. It’s a copy of an original of a well known image from the very brief era of the Imperial Airways and Qantas Short C Class flying boats. This original example was available from Christies, the auctioneers in 2012, sold for £2,500! There’s several things about this…
Spanish Bridge
Today’s Poster. There are many ways of advertising airline flights, and safety, ease and secure comparisons are popular. Here’s one from Iberia, the ‘Lineas Aereas Españolas’, and the Spanish text reads “Vuele confiado come si pasara el ocean sobre un solid puente – garantia de seguridad”. A rough translation would be ‘Fly with confidence, crossing…
Nearly Jets
Thanks to Peter Hobbins, today we have this very cheaply produced Australian children’s book from Gunn & Taylor Pty. Ltd. of Melbourne. A fine piece of random, otherwise forgotten ephemera. It’s not great artwork on the cover by any means, but the semi fictional aircraft depicted are at least based on real prototypes – several…
Scandinavian Defence View
Today’s poster is from a fascinating page, with a diverse range of artwork here [Edit: page has disappeared, here’s a cached version] that look into the way posters have been used to argue for preparedness for war or disaster in Scandinavia and beyond. This is a Swedish artwork by Anders Beckman, a highly regarded and…
A Flying Carpet
I didn’t expect we’d get a magic carpet in this year’s aviation story, but when this came up, it was too good to miss! Obviously a fantasy, but really no more so than some credible seeming flights of fancy seen elsewhere in this selection. A fantastic illustration by Winsor McCay, showing master penmanship and an…
Wartime International Show
Another gem from the Smithsonian collection. This is a poster to promote the III.Salone Internazionale Aeronautico, 2 – 17 Ottobre 1939 . XVII. The text reads ‘Visit’ [top left] the Third International Aeronautical Salon in October 1939, in the seventeenth year of Italy’s Fascist regime. I’ve cropped the online image (seen in full below) of…
Airspeed Air-Rail Service
Here’s an unusual one thanks to the extensive archives of the Smithsonian Collection. Listed in their catalogue as ‘Beginning of Air Rail Service’, the poster features a crossed aircraft and locomotive, though it’s interesting that the aircraft is much more clearly depicted with more detail. It’s an Airspeed Envoy, the type that preceded the Airspeed…
Around the Roundel
The French roundel, mainly seen on aircraft of the Armee de l’Air is here used to great effect as part of an aircraft display at the Musee de l’Air, et de l’espace, le Bourget, Paris. A combined image from several photographs taken by the author in the eighties. James Kightly, Vintage Aero Writer.
Best of British
Holding records was a matter of pride in the inter war period, while today the human element and the understanding of how hard that extra reach is to do has gone. To hold four records at once was a greater achievement, even with the resources of one of the world’s leading industrial nations deployed. Here…
A Year of Aviation Illustration & Art 