Beyond the limits In part one of this series, artists of the early 20th Century imagined voids in their illustrations of primordial airliners to demonstrate the comfort and complexity of mankind’s latest leap forward. By the late 1930s, however, and certainly by the end of World War II, aviation was becoming vastly more sophisticated. Engineering, on the other hand, remained tethered to the two-dimensional blueprints … Continue reading Cutaways 2
We’ve been travelling with a reporter from the Adelaide Register newspaper, on the nascent Australian Aerial Services airmail flight between Adelaide and Sydney – a direct distance of some 630 nautical miles. (As a comparison, London to Paris is 184 nm, New York to Albany is 117 nm, and L.A. to San Francisco is 292 nm.) The land along the route was slowly being occupied, … Continue reading Going by air (Part 3)
In Part One a reporter from the Adelaide Register newspaper joined the Australian Aerial Services airmail service between Adelaide and Sydney in June 1925. The service was exactly a year old at the time – having started in June 1924 as the first inter-state airmail service in Australia, the first between major cities, and the first in the relatively populous southeast. When we finished last time, … Continue reading Going by air (Part 2)
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
Gold fever Even today, New Guinea is a hell of a place to commit aviation. The entire island (now bisected into Indonesian West Papua and Papua New Guinea) is literally bigger than Texas – by about 100,000 km2 – and steep mountains soar over 14,000 feet into the hot, equatorial air, creating a deadly home for the term ‘clouds with rocks in them’. Huge rivers … Continue reading On aviation’s frontier
I came across an amazing image when I was preparing an earlier post, Without A Trace. Even then, I knew I wouldn’t be able to let it rest with a 20 word caption. It was of a Mosquito – a truly great aircraft that is familiar fare for airscape. But much as I’ve studied the DH98 – the ‘Wooden Wonder’; the ‘Timber Terror’ – I’d … Continue reading Bang!
Last week, The People’s Mosquito shared a video of their patron, the irreplaceable Capt. Eric “Winkle” Brown, discussing his role in testing the de Havilland Mosquito for carrier operations. Yes, you read that right: While the largest carrier-borne aircraft in service anywhere was the 10,545 lb Grumman Avenger (a big bird by any standard), the British were working out how to get on and … Continue reading Secrets of the Sea Mosquito
Early on the morning of September 27th, 1943, the distinctive baritone thunder of a Merlin engine rose over the base of No.410 Night Fighter Squadron RCAF, at Coleby Grange, Lincolnshire. This was a Mosquito base, so the sound of a single Merlin was nearly always bad news. A Mosquito was difficult enough to land with both turning. But the crew of this particular … Continue reading Close Call
Fancy yourself at the controls of Military Aviation Museum’s DH98 Mosquito FB Mk.26? I don’t know; maybe if Jerry Yagen was super-impressed by your glass-smooth arrival at Osh Kosh or something. Anyway, it would certainly be a priceless opportunity, even if the Timber Terror is reputed to have a nastier bite than its malarial six-legged namesake. But back when KA-114 was brand new, vast … Continue reading Mosquito Bites
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