…ke a living. Not everything he said was made up; after all, he had been recruited as a spy by two countries and he had some true things to say. But as far as aviation is concerned, he revealed nothing that wasn’t already known, and everything else was a farrago. As for the ‘Zeppelin-Parseval’ flight over London, since he was in Britain during the opening stages of the phantom airship scare, it’s far more likely that his (or his ghostwriter’s) insp…
…l bombardment of London and other cities, which would cause tremendous destruction and massive casualties. The nation would be shattered in a matter of days or weeks, before it could fully mobilize for war. Defeat, decline, and perhaps even extinction, would follow. This theory of the knock-out blow from the air solidified into a consensus during the 1920s and by the 1930s had largely become an orthodoxy, accepted by pacifists and militarists alik…
…ars: the Little Entente and France vs Italy, Poland vs the Little Entente, Russia vs Poland, Japan vs Russia, China vs Japan. Britain is now able to stand apart and watch Europe tear itself apart, nearly to death. But after a week, it and the United States (which hops its bombers across the Atlantic by way of floating aerodromes) impose peace, restoring the League of Nations, controlling international aviation, and creating an international air fo…
…of Lanieres, near the town, were acquired by a certain Gilbert Marty, of Brussels. The “Matin” exposed the fact that the real purchaser was none other than Krupp. Plant for manufacturing railway engines was subsequently erected on the ground. Heavy pieces of machinery could thus be constructed on the spot, and platforms built in suitable places on the property, where they lay concealed until the moment came when they were required for guns.5 This…
…literal example of naval theatre — was an imperative, imploring Britons to rule the waves or else be slaves, so too did the Edwardian aerial theatre warn them to now rule the clouds. Or else be vanquished. Flight, 4 September 1909, 532, 533. [↩] The Story of the Air League 1909-1959 (Sidney-Barton, 1959), 5. [↩] The Times, 7 June 1910, 12. [↩] Ibid. [↩] Quoted in New Zealand Herald (Auckland), 20 September 1913, 4. [↩] Andrew Horrall, Popular Cult…
…interdisciplinary seminar involving mostly Australian researchers from the humanities and social sciences, as well representatives from the heritage sector. A highlight for me was Michael Molkentin’s paper on pre-1914 military aviation in the Dominions, where he revealed the (unsurprisingly) naive entries submitted by the public for the Australian government’s competition to design an effective military machine. Peter Hobbins (one of the organiser…
…and it was one in a set of three. The two others, which followed the same design principles, were: YOUR COURAGE YOUR CHEERFULNESS YOUR RESOLUTION WILL BRING US VICTORY and: FREEDOM IS IN PERIL DEFEND IT WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT Both of these were printed up, and “YOUR COURAGE … ” was widely displayed during the blitz, given that the feared invasion did not take place after the German defeat in the Battle of Britain […] Of the three proposals, KEEP CAL…
…Simon Bradley. The Railways: Nation, Network and People. London: Profile Books, 2015. A social history of the British railway. Trains ain’t planes, but I’ve heard a lot of good things about this book. Keith Lovegrove. Airline: Style at 30,000 Feet. London: Laurence King, 2013. A fun little book about 20th century airline design, from advertising to cutlery; but it’s the cabin crew uniforms from the 1960s and 1970s that catch the eye. Terrifying….
…the extensive summary in Flight, it was on ‘Recent progress in flying-boat design’. However, Simmonds — who in the war had flown Bristol Fighters in the RFC and was now an aeronautical engineer at Supermarine working on, among other things, the soon-to-be-Schneider-Trophy-winning S.5 — did touch on the topic of airliners at the end of his talk: I shall certainly feel that progress has been inordinately slow if we have not constructed a boat of 100…
…the Aeroplane, partly technically no doubt, though I’m acquainted with the design of the thing from the Little Models, and as far as I can make out there’s been no real change in aeroplanes at all.3 Being a foreigner, Alfred is allowed to repair aeroplanes but not to fly them — but he gets a chance to, nevertheless, and it turns out that he’s a natural pilot: Alfred went on up, as fast as he could make the machine climb. He was intoxicated. He wan…
