The next 10 years Despite the large amount of historical content on ‘airscape’, there’s also an abiding interest in what’s coming next… If you want to see the future, hold a mirror up to the past. So when I was recently asked what I thought would be aviation’s biggest influencer in the coming decade, I was happy to do a little crystal ball gazing. Prepare … Continue reading Future flight
In 1925, a correspondent for the Adelaide Register took the opportunity of a lifetime – and flew on the De Havilland DH.50 airmail between South Australia and Sydney. Over 90 years later his account is a wonderful piece of time travel, that I’m not about to tarnish by over-amplifying the context. I’ll save the background for a subsequent post. (Although, I have to point out … Continue reading Going by air
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…
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
Wondering how we got here? Click to catch up with Heavenly Bodies – Part I and – Part II Flight without wings On June 4th, 1982, a Kosmos-3M launcher shot BOR-4 serial number 404 out of the atmosphere for the first time. Once in space the vehicle deployed itself into orbit, eight micro-thrusters orienting the tiny craft as it flew. The wings, which had been … Continue reading Heavenly Bodies – Part III
Feature Image: X-24 research pilots (L to R) Einar Enevoldson, John Manke, Richard Scobee, Tom McMurtry, Bill Dana, and Michael Love. (NASA photo) Missed Heavenly Bodies – Part I? Catch up here Down to earth By the second half of the 1960s, the future of lifting bodies was looking bright. Thanks to R. Dale Reed’s lightweight M2-F1, followed by the heavyweight M2-F2/M2-F3 and HL-10, NASA … Continue reading Heavenly Bodies – Part II
Falling with style Dangling below a thundering 234-UT Chinook helicopter on August 30th, 2017, Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Dream Chaser® was lifted 12,500 feet above Rogers Dry Lake to have its flight systems tested. It may have been a rather undignified ride for the small, re-usable spacecraft, but while the Chinook was thrashing at thin air near it’s practical flight ceiling, the Dream Chaser was nearer … Continue reading Heavenly Bodies – Part I
The battle above Today marks 101 years since the first day of the Battle of the Somme. And, while the bloody hours of July 1st, 1916 have become a by-word for military disaster, the operation above the trenches was an absolute triumph. Compared to the British Army’s 57,470 casualties and the German Army’s approximately 12,000, the Royal Flying Corps finished the day with just one airman … Continue reading Somme 101
Welcome back Following on from Part One, we rejoin Indicator’s tour of the Spitfire family with some handling notes and personal memories, a brief look at the later Griffon-engined stable, and some final thoughts on the long evolution of history’s most iconic fighter… Joy flying By way of relief from the old original pressure-cabin types of the Mark VI and VII, the Mark XI PRU … Continue reading On Spitfires (Part Two)
‘Indicator’ tells all ‘Indicator’ filed a long series of impressions of Allied aircraft for Flight magazine in the years after World War 2. While Flight didn’t give his identity away (most likely because he was still in uniform) he was definitely a test pilot – probably at the RAF’s Aeroplane & Armament Experimental Establishment, Boscombe Down. Mind you, he also seems to have done some … Continue reading On Spitfires (Part One)
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