Vital signs
Enjoying the country air You see. This is what I’m talking about… In the past two weeks I’ve been to two small, country air shows. And country shows are the best. The first was quite by accident. The small airfield at Aldinga (YADG), about 45 km from central Adelaide, had promoted an ‘Open Day’ that I wanted to go to. (You’ll see why in an … Continue reading Vital signs
Hard landing
Lessons from the lighter side Let me begin with a mea culpa: I admit, I only started watching the clip below for a bit of a laugh. Don’t get me wrong – I have profound respect for the skill, patience and resilience of the people who build and fly model planes. Especially the resilience: Hundreds of hours on the workbench; tens of seconds on the … Continue reading Hard landing
Gone awry
Oh dear. I think I might have gotten a bit ‘soap boxy’ last month. I don’t want to give the impression that I’m anti-enterprise, or anti-airlines, or anti- very much, really. Who has the time? I am, if anything, a little passionate about aviation and the freedom to practise it. And so I’m still committed to writing a follow-up article for ‘If you build it…’ … Continue reading Gone awry
If you build it…
The two at the front There was something curiously logical about a movie star who made his name riding horses lending a small wooden ship to a pair of corporate heavyweights, so they could change the course of aviation. The afternoon that Boeing’s Bill Allen and Pan American’s Juan Trippe spent cruising Puget Sound aboard John Wayne’s Wild Goose in 1965 has become part of … Continue reading If you build it…
Light as air
The art of science Apparently I’m not the only one to have noticed the photogenic beauty of wind tunnels and what goes on inside them. So it seems appropriate to celebrate the beautiful images that have been captured in wind tunnels over the decades. Now, this isn’t a study of wind tunnels or their history, or even of aerodynamics. It’s simply a collection – and … Continue reading Light as air
Private War
The Battle of Winslow Sobanski Any war is made up of a series of battles – for each particular country, region, city, hamlet, hill or strongpoint… and World War 2 was no exception. But alongside the thousands of strategic and tactical fights which made it into the history books, there were millions of private battles that didn’t. On land, sea, and in the air, every … Continue reading Private War
Go with the flow
The way to fly I’ve been reading aerodynamics books over the last month. I know. So cool, right? I don’t apologise. I find the subject fascinating and the more I learn, the more it makes me want to find out. I have it so bad that I find the engineers at NASA JPL and Langley genuinely cool. Sigh! I guess there are far lesser people … Continue reading Go with the flow
Star!
For the love of historic aircraft I feel very privileged, as curator of this meandering and irregular blog, when I’m able to share a special piece of aviation culture. And this is one. A few months ago, loyal airscape follower Hannah Salzman, asked if I’d be interested in sharing some photos she took with ‘her sister’s good camera’. Well of course I would. Who wouldn’t? … Continue reading Star!
Four turning
Grand circle route Back in the day, Qantas crews referred to their long-haul Super Constellations as ‘the best three-engined airliners in the world’. The complicated, 18 cylinder turbo-compound Wright R-3350-972-TC18DA ‘Duplex Cyclone’ engines arrayed along the wings paid for their incredible 3,250 HP output (each) with a propensity to failure. In fact, Qantas had spare engines stored at every stop along its Kangaroo Route from … Continue reading Four turning
Spitfire restoration
Back from the grave Apparently I had so much to cover in my report on the first half of this year, that I completely forgot to share what may be one the best aviation things I ever did! As you may recall from ‘The Man Inside K5054’, Joseph ‘Mutt’ Summers was far more than ‘just’ the test pilot who took Supermarine’s history-making Spitfire prototype on … Continue reading Spitfire restoration
