Damn gurrrrl
The Loire-Nieuport LN-10. Source: Ron Eisele and airwar.ru.
Archives, Periodicals, Pictures, Tools and methods
Partial Aeroplane archive
A few months back I wrote about alternatives to the (still missing, still missed) FlightGlobal archive of Flight magazine, a key source for aviation history (for me, anyway). I forgot to mention that Flight‘s great rival, The Aeroplane (founded and edited by the egregious C. G. Grey), is also partially accessible through the Internet Archive.
Blogging, tweeting and podcasting
2020-2005 hindsight
I’ve fortuitously remembered that today is the day that Airminded turns 15. It seriously seems like hardly any time at all since the day it turned 10, even though that period has seen a number of personal and professional milestones (and whatever the opposite of milestones is), including my first (and still only) major research
1900s, Aerial theatre, Australia, Before 1900, Periodicals, Pictures
Fiasco at Chowder Bay — V
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
1900s, 1920s, Australia, Periodicals, Pictures
Fiasco at Chowder Bay — IV
When we first met N. R. Gordon, it was in Sydney in 1894 and he was preparing a steam-powered ornithopter for flight. When we last saw him, it was 1900 and he was filing a patent application for a human-powered ornithopter. Here he is again, in May 1907, this time at Footscray in Melbourne’s west,
1900s, Archives, Australia, Before 1900, Periodicals
Fiasco at Chowder Bay — III
N. R. Gordon was behind the Chowder Bay flying machine, but who was N. R. Gordon? His full name was Newton Roberts Gordon, and he emigrated from Britain in 1882.1 Although he described himself on a 1900 patent application as an ‘engineer’, and worked at one point as a mining engineer, it’s not clear if
Aerial theatre, Australia, Before 1900, Periodicals, Pictures
Fiasco at Chowder Bay — II
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
Aerial theatre, Australia, Before 1900, Periodicals, Pictures
Fiasco at Chowder Bay — I
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
Blogging, tweeting and podcasting, Periodicals, Pictures, Tools and methods
Introducing @TroveAirRaidBot
I’ve remixed Trove Air Bot 2 into a new bot: Trove Air Raid Bot. As the name suggests, this is picking up a different subset of Trove Newspapers articles to @troveairbot, namely those relating to air raids, which it then tweets, one every 30 minutes. In fact, that’s the only key word, or rather phrase,
1930s, Art, Periodicals, Pictures
Modern wonders — I
For nearly four years from May 1937, Modern Wonder (Modern World from March 1940) was a British weekly magazine, priced at 2d. and aimed at, presumably, boys and young men who were interested in high technology, big machines and vehicles that go really, really fast — sometimes fantastical, but mostly real, if on or near