Home Stretch
Fully interactive I didn’t get to Sun ‘n’ Fun (again – but in my defence, it is literally on the other side of the world). All I could manage was to follow the highlights via the blizzard of podcasts and social media content a show like that generates… I still feel I missed out on the best of the warbirds, aerobatics, experimentals and the neat … Continue reading Home Stretch
Lonely From The Off
Almost any time you watch, read or listen to interviews with WW2 fighter pilots, they give a huge amount of credit to their ground crews. And yet the media never seems to take the cue. Stories focused solely on those ground crews are rare beyond words.* However, I found the following piece in an old Air Forces Magazine (January 1944). Apart from being incredibly well … Continue reading Lonely From The Off
Family matters
Feature photo (above) courtesy of TAVAS Undoing a legend Saturday, April 21st, 2018 will be the 100th anniversary of the death of Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen – aka The Red Baron – World War One’s deadliest aerial ace. I, for one, will be celebrating this notable centenary at The Australian Vintage Aviation Society (TAVAS) Great War Flying Display 2018 at Caboolture Airfield, just north … Continue reading Family matters
Oswald Watt
Combat Over The Trenches Oswald Watt, Aviation Pioneer by Chris Clark Published by Pen & Sword Aviation, ISBN 978 1 52671 501 2 Originally published in Australia as The High Life of Oswald Watt; Australia’s First Military Pilot (Big Sky Publishing Pty Ltd) this Pen & Sword reprint brings a hugely important Australian aviator to the world stage. And, while the new title Combat Over … Continue reading Oswald Watt
Passing The Cup
World Leader It’s a question that’s easily answered for celebrities, business leaders and heads of state, but how do you get between engagements when you’re a pre-eminent trophy…? Okay, you may not have devoted that much brain space to the issue before now. And I know that not everyone is obsessed with soccer. But with 209 participating countries, an expected TV audience of over 1 … Continue reading Passing The Cup
Smarter Learning
‘Smart flight training’ doesn’t just mean glass cockpits and electric airplanes. With ‘Skynotes’, career educator and CFI Amy Labus-Olson is re-casting instruction as an up-to-date education service. From the ground up There’s an old saw that says you’re not ready to fly until the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the aircraft. Okay, so the rise of digital devices has made that problem … Continue reading Smarter Learning
Dawn’s early light
Merci beaucoup, Albert Kahn Long before the convenience of high speed Kodachrome colour film, and even before hand-tinting black-and-white images became a thing, the Lumière Brothers (of motion picture fame) created an ingenious colour photography process called Autochrome. Based on glass plates coated in specially dyed potato starch grains behind a conventional silver emulsion, Autochrome Lumière was patented in 1903 and remained the pre-eminent colour process … Continue reading Dawn’s early light
Firing up
Aviation culture If you’ve been following airscape for a while, you’ll know that January is hardly the most productive time of year. A combination of having kids home for the holidays and Adelaide’s furnace-fierce summer weather makes writing difficult, to say the least. Happily things are returning to normal now. And one way or another, I’m planning to make 2018 a pivotal year. For now, … Continue reading Firing up
Spread your wings
How to make the most of flight training A few weeks back (okay, several weeks now) I received the best kind of email – a query about flight schools from a reader contemplating starting in for her pilot’s licence. I love the idea of people wanting to become pilots. The magic, the self-discipline, the sensation and the satisfaction are all hard to beat. It’s no … Continue reading Spread your wings
Southern Cross Airways
When the Empire of Japan swept across the western Pacific with re-imagined mobility, the nearest safe territory was literally an ocean away from America’s arsenal of democracy. And getting from the US West Coast to Northern Australia by air would be a 12,446-kilometre-long life-or-death game of join-the-dots across the Pacific. In December 1941 only four men had ever made the flight in a land plane … Continue reading Southern Cross Airways
