Christmas Eve. Lots of Santa Claus-with-aircraft-posts, but this story from the Aviation Geek club here (do click, have a read, come back) is a fascinating story. In the Vietnam War, an American Caribou transport was painted as a Santa reindeer for Christmas: ‘No group of children ever carried off the fantasy so well. A young…
Category: Photograph
Avro Claus
Here’s Santa Claus using an aircraft rather than the traditional sleigh and reindeer. This has been a common event in aviation around the world in the modern era, with Santa turning up from the skies in a huge range of different types. This is an early example, with Santa using a post Great War Avro…
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…
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…
The SLV’s Dutchmen
Currently on at the State Library of Victoria (re-opening today) is the ‘Velvet, Iron, Ashes’ exhibition, which among several other great things contains an excellent selection of items relating to the 1934 MacRobertson air race. The display includes a newsreel highlights, and the promotional poster (seen above) as well as one of the many route…
Caravelle
Today we have an advertising theme featuring the unusual windows of the Sud Aviation SE 210 Caravelle medium range airliner. James Kightly, Vintage Aero Writer. Posters, found online, photograph from here.
Get A Pilot Husband
Today’s cover illustration, The Australian magazine Woman’s Day and Home, November 20, 1950. Often unintentional ironies appear in coverline clashes in magazines, but this one has also become slightly more intense with time. A little serious insight to the reality behind being a ‘cover star’. Doug Morrison writes “Old friend Max Garroway 2nd from right….
Toys of Yesteryear
Today a photo of a British toy shop window – A caption gives it as ‘Henley, UK, 1960, by Stuart James’. It’s an interesting mix that social historians could, I’m sure, make a lot of. Aircraft aren’t particularly prominent, but they’re there. Right in the middle, is model box of a de Havilland DH 106…
A Year of Aviation Illustration & Art 