Today’s Poster is from the Smithsonian collection, and is a startlingly modern look for a period poster promoting the Farman aircraft company’s air lines, later the Société Générale des Transports Aérienes (SGTA). The contrast of the sleek gulls to the boxy Farman airliner, and the unusual yellow background and the remarkably modern logo make a…
Month: December 2019
Zepps! Gorilla!
I promised something more cheerful today, so here we are. Today’s pulp cover is the unarguably excellent ‘Zeppelin Stories’, this issue featuring ‘The Gorilla of the Gas Bags’ by Gil Brewer. With a cover like that, you know it’s going to be all good stuff inside, right? A bit of background from the website ‘The…
Heil Bone Hand
Today’s Poster is a remarkable one, from a German magazine in the pre-World War Two era, when the horrors of the Spanish Civil War were new, and featuring the classic propaganda theme of the slaughtered innocents. Here, however, with the relatively new inclusion of combat aircraft. In some ways it’s a simple image, as well…
13th On The Nose
Today we are lucky to have a Friday the 13th, so here’s a look at a particularly unusual nose art. We start with a rare wartime colour shot of the nose art on Handley Page Halifax LV907 on public display on the heavily bombed Oxford Street, London. The text: “As ye sew so shall ye…
They Who Look
In World War Two, the British aircraft parts company Helliwells used a series of images of a nude female model to promote their work – no other evident reason beyond the obvious one! However it certainly ensured their advertising stood out from the rest. They often (but not always) used the tagline ‘They Who Look…
Double Cross
A pair of images showing preliminary designs and final artwork by the doyen of UK box art, Roy Cross. Above is the original design for the Airfix Beaufighter and Me 109G.6 ‘Dog Fight Double’ set – note how the final art has the Reich defence rocket tubes under the wings, as per the original kit,…
Real Imperial
The Handley Page HP 42 airliners of Imperial Airways are a familiar sight in the iconography of the interwar airways system as we’ve seen here – their interiors less so. What aspects and details can you identify in the images? Based (as my colleague Juanita Franzi explored so well in her paper at the Aviation…
Hindermost
Today’s something different again. Here’s the postwar painting entitled ‘Bomber Crash’ by Australian Frank Hinder, who was working with the Camouflage Wing of the Royal Australian Engineers during World War Two. At first it seems to be a semi-abstract fire image, the details become evident as the picture is read. Held in the Australian War…
Caravelle Cont.
I recently posted a number of Sud Aviation Caravelle images focused on the unusual passenger cabin’s curved triangular windows. But there’s plenty more great artworks of Caravelles, clearly one of the most elegant airliners with a loyal following even today. Coming and going with Air Algerie and Alitalia… And two takes with Finnair. The Stewardess…
Tomorrow Never Comes
Following yesterday’s post featuring both airliners that didn’t make it, or never came to reality (as well as some that did) today here’s a proposed airliner that seems a lot more credible a design, though it was also never to become real – yesterday or tomorrow. An advertisement for Cunliffe-Owen Aircraft Ltd, a company that…
A Year of Aviation Illustration & Art 