Today an advertisement thanks to Airminded on Twitter. As well as the proposition (‘call us to camouflage your buildings or they may get bombed’, – definitely not a “nice factory, be a shame if something HAPPENED to it” angle of course!) the aircraft caught my eye.

It’s not a German type, despite the prominent Swastika on the tail. The artist has doubled the vertical tail surfaces, but otherwise it’s pretty clearly a copy of the prototype Boeing YB-9 all-metal bomber of the early thirties.

Fun for those of us who like to catch the oddity, but it’s an odd, obsolete prototype to chose for a 1939 advertisement. There’s another whole question about the role of private enterprise in arranging for civilian camouflage.

Lastly, let’s go back to much earlier, to another brightly coloured fictional depiction of the Boeing YB-9 ‘in action’ from Universal Model Aeroplane News.

James Kightly, Vintage Aero Writer.