(G)olden days
Messing about in planes This won’t be news to TAVAS members any more, but a couple of weekends back I had the enormous pleasure of hanging out with my mate Andrew at the TAVAS Museum at Caboolture, north of Brisbane. (Plus other shenanigans, which we needn’t go into here.) TAVAS Museum I’d like to stop here, in case your boss comes in and you have … Continue reading (G)olden days
Missing Man
Vale, General Yeager Sometime today, you will find yourself processing the news that the famous twinkle has forever left the clear eyes of Brigadier-General Charles E. Yeager. I heard the news from my friend Ronald, who heard it on the radio. Then I checked and found I’d not known for around five hours. Part of me regretted that. Another part was glad I hadn’t found … Continue reading Missing Man
Eagle & dove
Marie Marvingt In March 1915, an injured pilot of the French Aéronautique Militaire was transported to a field hospital behind Verdun, 200km east of Paris. There, one of his nurses learned he had been the only pilot available to fly an important bombing mission. Within days, that nurse would become history’s first female combat pilot. No ordinary nurse This was still the early days of … Continue reading Eagle & dove
O’Hare City
Point of view Apparently, we’re not quite ready to move on just yet – and my last post on the Early Days At O’Hare brought in at least one response that’s worth a share. (By the way, I’ve fixed the image links in that piece now, so you can actually read the magazine article.) Phil Thompson is an artist and self-confessed travel geek living in … Continue reading O’Hare City
Early Days at O’Hare
Orchard Place Of course it wasn’t what I set out to do. I’d actually thought it would be interesting to go through some old American aviation magazines and compare the advertising from late 1938 to late 1943 and then mid-1945… I wanted to see how things changed as the Depression economy recovered but before war in Europe had begun; then in the depths of WW2 … Continue reading Early Days at O’Hare
The story of EW999 (Part 4)
The RAF Skymasters Researching Churchill’s Skymaster turned up a fair amount of interest – and just as much misinformation – about the entire fleet of RAF Dougkas C-54s. So, while I don’t have ready access to the records that could give us all a truly granular history of the C-54 in British service, I’ll give you what I can. This should help end some confusion, scotch … Continue reading The story of EW999 (Part 4)
The story of EW999 (Part 3)
Churchill’s Skymaster …continuing from Part 2 of this series A vigorous supporter of aid for Russia since October 1941, Mrs Clementine Churchill had been invited to tour Red Cross facilities across Russia in March 1944. The invitation was seen as a thank you for Clementine’s years of dedicated fundraising in support of the Russian Red Cross …and possibly as a propaganda assault by the Soviet … Continue reading The story of EW999 (Part 3)
The story of EW999 (Part 2)
Churchill’s Skymaster As we’ve seen in Part 1, the RAF’s first Douglas C-54 Skymaster, serial EW999 (C-54B 43-17126/0100), was luxuriously fitted out for the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The work was overseen by Armstrong-Whitworth Aviation at Whitley, Coventry and the new aircraft was ready for ‘The Owner’ in November 1944. A dedicated crew Apparently the PM disliked new faces or changes to his immediate … Continue reading The story of EW999 (Part 2)
The story of EW999 (Part 1)
Churchill’s Skymaster When Franklin D. Roosevelt presented Winston Churchill with an entire airplane, it was much more than an updated transport option. Of course the gesture reflected an abiding friendship between the two leaders. Also, the USAAF was preparing the C-54 (42-107451) that would become famous as Roosevelt’s The Sacred Cow. For Churchill to have an identical high standard of modern airplane spoke to their … Continue reading The story of EW999 (Part 1)
Future flight
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
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