Airfix Spitfire Mk 21, a work in progress. Image source: Airfix gallery, user HawkerTempest5. It looks like Airfix, Britain’s oldest and most famous manufacter of plastic model aeroplanes (among other things), might be going under. It will probably not surprise readers of this site to learn that I had a collection of model aeroplanes as […]
[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.] He 111 over London, 7 September 1940. Image source: Wikimedia Commons. So, I’ve looked at J. M. Spaight’s predictions in The Sky’s the Limit about how the British fighters would fare in the Battle of Britain, and how the German ones would too. All that remains is to examine his
It’s exactly 40 years since the Battle of Long Tan, a notable feat of Australian arms during the Vietnam War. But I have a more personal anniversary in mind — yesterday was 90 years to the day since my great-grand uncle John Joseph Mulqueeney was killed by an artillery round during the Somme campaign, on
[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.] Fw 198. Image source: Current Aviation, 26 November 1943, via Model Airplane Kits. In the course of my research, I get to read many predictions about the future, partiularly the future of warfare. One of the reasons I like doing this is that it helps to restore the uncertainty of
[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.] This is the front cover of a book by J. M. Spaight on British airpower, called The Sky’s the Limit. It was published in 1940, a not-insignificant year for the RAF. In fact, this ‘New and up-to-date’ edition was published in August, right in the middle of the Battle of
[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.] Photographs of actual combat in the First World War are exceedingly rare, in the air as well as on the ground. Both of these are purportedly of Zeppelins flying over Britain. Are they fake or not? My answers are below. `The low down thing that plays the low down game’.
My laptop is my primary workhorse, and I’ve just upgraded — a very exciting time in any computer geek’s life! On the left, my old 12″ 1.0 Ghz G4 Powerbook, “zeppelin”; on the right, my new 13″ 2.0 GHz Core Duo MacBook, “hendon”. Zeppelin has been a rock-solid little machine for me these last couple
[I posted this last Wednesday, but somehow, it was marked as “private” rather than “published”, so nobody saw it but me! So I’m fixing that and bumping it to the top.] The talk went off pretty well, I think — at least I didn’t hear any snoring and got some good questions at the end.
This is my reading list for the next month or so, all from the period 1932-1941. After that, I’ll be back at the State Library to read some more. There’s about twice as many books as there were for the preceding period (1917-1931), though not all of these will turn out to be of great
Football, by which I mean Australian Rules, pretty much bores me to tears. Given that I live in the home of Aussie rules, it’s something that I just have to put up with. Melbourne is obsessed with the sport for more than half the year, between the start of the pre-game season in February and
