Today’s Poster. “Rainboeing the Skies” (1971) by graphic designer Dan Reisinger introducing the then-new Boeing 747 to El Al Israeli Airlines. Here, in the 1970s, the rainbow design has a different subtext (as well as a frankly cheesy ‘RainBOEING’ pun) to that it would have in a 2019 context, yet as a design it’s clean…
Month: August 2019
Sunset Walrus
HMS Sheffield’s Supermarine Walrus amphibian alighting in Hong Kong harbour, 1938, notes the caption in Roy Huxley’s painting for the boxtop of the Matchbox 1/72 kit. A beautifully evocative, accurate image. James Kightly, Vintage Aero Writer. Internet find.
Hell Dogs Over England
In the current (September 2019) issue of Aeroplane Monthly, here, artist Ian Bott and I have out latest ‘Briefing File’ feature on the defences against the V-1 bomb in 1944. While researching the history, it became evident that the comfort of hindsight has stripped away the fact that at the time, no-one really knew what…
Return of the Imperial
Here’s a pair and a quintet, with a lesson for those doing this job – check every copy found, in books and online. Several of the well known, even famous posters we’ve seen here exist in variant forms – sometimes with different text, sometimes with different backgrounds – or more, as we shall see. It’s…
Don’t Eat a Bomb
Today’s Poster pair are foodstuffs as bombs. On the face of it, a strange juxtaposition, but these two takes feature opposite views, but both are about thrift. Avoiding waste, and recycling into munitions. The bayonet as a breadknife is a particular touch. Translated, reads ‘Expensive Bread – The Politics of War’, by the the Communist…
Hardy Coton Vimy
Today we have a pair of artworks on the Vickers Vimy, an aircraft type designed for the Great War, but made a name as a record setter worldwide. The first image is by the late, great aviation artist Wilf Hardy, a particular favourite painter of myself and my Aeroplane Monthly colleague Ian Bott. A 450mm…
WAAF in Hebrew
Here’s a remarkable item, a 9 x 21 cm recruitment brochure for the British Woman’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) of the Second World War in Hebrew, aimed at a Jewish audience. Found on e-Bay, and passed onto me by Kiran Toor, the sales details give the background: “The Yishuv [Jewish community in the land of…
Boys for a Man’s Job
Today’s Poster is a classic theme, recruitment. It’s unusual mainly in conflating the juvenile (school age) Air Training Corps (now the Australian Air Force Cadets, AAFC) experience with training for an air force trade with the Royal Australian Air Force. (RAAF). Formed in 1941, as the war started to tell on Australia’s peacetime resources, “The…
Frights in Finland
Today’s posters from Finland are rather eerie civil defence ones from World War Two. In Suomi, it reads: “Ilmasta uhkaa vaara! Kaikki kansalaiset väestönsuojelutyöhön!” or “Danger Threatens from the sky! Take Air Raid Precautions”. The figure is obviously intended to seem protective, sheltering a blue clad family from the bomber aircraft that looks somewhat like…
Inside the Eagle
Inspired by a discussion on Twitter, here’s a selection of aircraft cutaway artwork, mainly from the British children’s magazine ‘Eagle’ most famous for the cartoon strip ‘Dan Dare’. [It was the era of the straight leading edge Avro Vulcan B1, and the carrier HMS Eagle.] Dare aside, the other highlight for most in the magazine…
A Year of Aviation Illustration & Art 