The ‘flight’ — The machine reached the edge of the slope, shot out a few yards into the air with the impetus it had acquired, and then dropped with a crash onto the rocks.1 I am very nearly done with N. R. Gordon, who built at least five completely unsuccessful flying machines over a period […]
On Wednesday, 27 May 2020, I was privileged to give a seminar to the Contemporary Histories Research Group at Deakin University on my aerial theatre research — via Zoom, as is the current fashion. I really enjoyed giving it, and I think it was a great success (and thanks to everyone who listened in and
So, who was behind the Chowder Bay flying machine? In November 1894, the month before the ill-fated flight attempt, stories appeared in the Sydney press about what sounds like a very similar ‘flying machine’ being exhibited in a vacant lot behind the Lyceum Theatre. Given the reported plans for a launch over Sydney Harbour, it’s
This photograph shows a steam-powered ‘flying machine’ which was to make the world’s first heavier-than-air flight from the cliffs at Chowder Bay, Sydney Harbour, Boxing Day (26 December), 1894. Spoiler: it didn’t. The attempt was widely advertised, even in the other colonies: the Brisbane Week reported that
Last year I looked at a couple of fantastic photographs from the State Library of South Australia’s collection, taken at Harry Butler’s ‘Aviation Day’ display at Unley on 23 August 1919. They’re fantastic because they focus not on the flying but on the crowds watching it. Now I’ve found two more photos taken on the
[With apologies to Gabriel García Márquez and Ben Wilkie.] It’s not that long ago that I was posting about the Australian bushfires; now it’s the turn of the coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s worldwide. Social media is an essential tool in such times of crisis, but it also can be a misleading one. Here’s
My article, ‘The meaning of Hendon: the Royal Air Force Display, aerial theatre and the technological sublime, 1920–37’, has been accepted for publication in Historical Research (the journal of the Institute of Historical Research). I’m not sure when it will be published yet, and I can’t self-archive the post-peer-reviewed version until 24 months after publication.
From the climactic set-piece at the 1927 RAF Display at Hendon, the destruction of an ‘Eastern village’ by Fairey Foxes — in GIF form:
Tim Sherratt pointed out this remarkable image, PRG 280/1/24/108 in the State Library of South Australia’s collection. The description reads: A large crowd of spectators packed into stands around a show ring looking up into the sky as they watch for the arrival of the local aviator Harry Butler’s aircraft. The date is given as
This is the cover of a leaflet produced in 1916 by the Australian Air Squadrons Fund, the Australian arm of the Imperial Air Flotilla which raised funds around the British Empire for presentation ‘battle-planes’ for the Royal Flying Corps. My interest in it is not so much for its own sake, though I am struck
