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: Humour
Psych Focke Hits Wall
Spotted in Feb 2020 (post backdated to 2019!) by Hayden Bruce in Perth, WA, is this full-on aircraft graffiti. Not immediately obvious is that it’s an adaptation from one of the many box-top artworks from the Revell 1/72 kit 04678 of the Focke-Wulf Fw 200 ‘Condor‘. Impressive effort! Anyone with more info on it, please…
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…
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…
Firebomb Fritz
A wartime British defensive propaganda character (mostly forgotten today) was ‘Firebomb Fritz’. Here in colour: …and here in black and white, both by Reginald Mount. (Original UK National Archives caption: “Fritz in Nazi bomber” by Reginald Mount, 1942 Catalogue ref: INF 3/1421. The cartoon depicts determined (but subservient) looking German air force men flying towards…
Comestible Concorde
Here’s a Concorde cake. Because why not? I don’t have any further information – obviously in France rather than the UK, and featuring the Air France scheme. Only other detail is the visor seems to be the pre-production version. Does anyone know more? [Sauce (ahem) on Facebook ‘Avions moches, bizarres, ratés, projets abandonnés et aviation…
Goats in Clouds
Today’s image; one of the classics – both for the joke, and for the always great effort by the inimitable Gary Larson of The Far Side. ‘Rock stuffed clouds’ are one of aviation’s least good things, and goats are just a cherry on the top of an indigestible desert of a metaphor over extended. As…
Moth Alight
A 1933 cartoon from Punch by Leslie Illingworth. The text reads: ‘Man with a particular grievance. “Oh, it’s only you, is it? I thought it was one of those confounded motor-cycles kicking up a row again.”‘ I should, at this point say that if you don’t find this funny, it’s not your fault – earlier…
Not quite the nick of time
Today’s cover is from a 1961 Punch, by the redoubtable transport cartoonist Russell Brockbank. Like ‘Back to the old Drawing Board’ we featured from the equally remarkable Peter Arno of the New Yorker, this is another, albeit simpler example of a great visual joke, though here wordless. Another layer that’s easy for a viewer today…
Unrepeatable Emett Offer
Today a 1952 cartoon from Rowland Emett. Little known nowadays, Frederick Rowland Emett OBE was an English cartoonist and constructor of whimsical kinetic sculpture, some of which survives in use today. He was a British institution, his high point being the ‘Far Tottering and Oyster Creek Branch Railway’, a real railway built for the 1951…
A Year of Aviation Illustration & Art 