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…
Tag: Games
Fair Flak
Today we have a children’s board game. The boxtop is pretty clear, it’s a Nazi German anti-aircraft game. Entitled ‘Adler Luftverteidigungsspiel’ (Eagles Air Defence Game) the box depicts a German 88mm Flak gun shooting down a British Bristol Blenheim Mk.IV (a favourite ‘target’ of German propaganda). The story, thanks to Board Game Geeks website: ‘This…
Card Game Biplane
Lots of games and toys have representative ‘aeroplanes’ within them. Here’s one for the App Solitare by Mobility Ware from my phone. This is a biplane (so extra points) and while it ‘cheats’ by changing the dimensions of some cards to fill some bits of the structure, I think it captures the spirit of both…
Big Kid Ride
Today’s art is very different. A fairground ride spotted at the Tivoli fair in Copenhagen, Denmark, which featured a range of neat biplanes. But not just any old biplanes… A great deal of effort had been taken to give them real schemes; here as Curtiss P-6 Hawk of the 17th Pursuit Squadron of the US…
RAF Pastiche in the Century
Most pastiche period illustrations don’t capture the correct look and feel, either trying to hard or just not understanding the aesthetic. This set of cars, seen at Metro Hobbies in Melbourne, Victoria, do manage the flight of Spitfires pretty well, though the overall image uses modern fonts. The Spitfires could be a screenprint poster from…
A Sawed-Up Gauntlet Set
A traditional, wooden proper ‘jig-sawed’ jigsaw puzzle, featuring a flight of RAF Gloster Gauntlet fighters. At the RAAF Museum, Cosford, taken by the author in 2008. Does anyone know the artist? The original painting is signed, but unreadable in the photograph, unfortunately. James Kightly, Vintage Aero Writer.
A Year of Aviation Illustration & Art 