The last chronological post* of the blog features a very special item, and some of the fascinating complex background to it – the fictional Carreidas 160 supersonic bizjet. We start with an image of the Carreidas 160 in flight, but all is not what it seems, it’s an excellent creation from here. It was first…
Tag: Heraldry
Sharp Dressed Regiment
Join the RAF Regiment and go into battle in a sharp dressed blue battledress and camouflage helmet… A great RAF recruiting poster found by Simon Harley on Twitter here. The artwork is by Frank Wootton, a doyen of British aviation art, and the aircraft is an RAF Transport Command Bristol Type 175 Britannia. James Kightly,…
Back in Short Trousers
We’ve seen the work of the great American magazine illustrator Leyendecker here and here, so it’s appropriate we feature another great American illustrator, the one and only Norman Rockwell, on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post, on 15 December 1945, after the end of World War Two. Like most of Rockwell’s art, it…
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…
Fly Down to Africa
Today a pair of posters that feature semi abstract African themes, and promoting the ‘Jet DC-8’ (when a jet was a notable differentiating advantage in airline advertising). Two different airlines though, UAT (Union Aéromaritime de Transport) and Air Afrique, which developed as an African owned and operated airline from UAT and other elements. Both posters…
Fashion Roundels
A magazine cover today, from Paris, 1916. In fact Saturday 25 November, where the Great War had been going for two years, and aircraft marking were well established. Magazine ‘La Vie Parisienne’ (‘Parisiene Life’) has an amusing looking cover. The woman, perhaps a ‘light skirt’ (a loose woman) given she’s showing her slip and stocking…
Uniting Nations
Today’s Poster. We are all familiar today with the organisation the United Nations. What’s less well known is the name dates back to the stage of World War Two when the Axis powers had united many of the rest of the world against them. From Wiki: “On New Year’s Day 1942, the Allied “Big Four”…
Wing Badges n’ Things
Today we have an accidental product of my job, reporting on aviation preservation worldwide. Relatively recently, two major transport, technology and heritage collections on opposite sides of the world changed their logos. The Shuttleworth Collection, in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, UK, adopted a newly designed brand logo: I immediately though it seemed familiar (though there was no…
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….
Rare Egyptian Camel
Yes, not the humped quadruped, but a Camel from Sopwith. Or in this case, from the sub contracted manufacturer Ruston. The ‘Scarf & Goggles’ blog says: “The completion of Ruston’s 1000th Camel was felt to warrant some celebration, with the result that this aircraft, serial number B7380, was delivered on 25 January 1918 wearing an…
A Year of Aviation Illustration & Art 