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…
Tag: model
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,…
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…
AI – A?
Fifty years ago on the 15th September, 1969, the ‘Battle of Britain’ film was released. A painstaking effort at telling the story of the 1940 Battle, as well as an all-star cast, a huge fleet of aircraft was assembled for the real aerial cinematography. Though the film was not a success at the box office,…
Flight Deck!
Today a toy that will bring back memories for the seventies Airfix generation. It was issued in two forms; the original blue Royal Navy McDonnell Douglas Phantom and a later yellow version, much simplified overall. Here, above is the simpler version. The exciting box contained the bits to enable you to launch a Phantom jet…
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…
Sunset Walrus
HMS Sheffield’s Supermarine Walrus amphibian alighting in Hong Kong harbour, 1938, notes the caption in Roy Huxley’s painting for the boxtop of the Matchbox 1/72 kit. A beautifully evocative, accurate image. James Kightly, Vintage Aero Writer. Internet find.
Clipper Clobber
From the excellent San Francisco Airport Aviation Museum and Library comes this neat 2013 exhibition catalogue. It serves as an insight to how an assemblage of aviation ephemera and collectables can pull together a good story of a now vanished age, with echoes of some elements of today’s airline experience, but many more differences. The…
Silver Skimmer
A very accurate sterling silver model of a Saro Skeeter helicopter. Yet another area, that of military mess trophies, that could be an entire blog featuring nothing else. One of the mess silverware items owned by 4 Regiment, Army Air Corps, UK, it was shared by silverware valuer Silverlady on Twitter. A Skeeter would be…
Pan-Concorde-Am
Today we have a couple of monochrome artworks of a ‘retro future’ – two proposals that never came to pass. Posted by Geoff Hall on the Facebook BOAC page here. Geoff adds: “These pics were in a Bristol Evening Post supplement celebrating the flight of Concorde March 69. The Pan Am one is particularly…
A Year of Aviation Illustration & Art 