…nights.5 Here we have armbands, not hatbands. They seem to have a circular design on them but unfortunately there’s not enough detail to make it out. There’s just one more article about the Raid Shelter Corps in BNA and after all these tantalising snippets, fortunately it’s a substantial one. Oddly, it’s not in a metropolitan or even a major provincial newspaper, but the Middlesex & Buckingham Advertiser (and the Uxbridge Gazette). While it begins…
…avid Hobb’s account of Mayfly persuades me that it was in fact an advanced design for its day (if too ambitious in the end).8 Its loss turned the Royal Navy away from rigid airships for a crucial period just before war came, and it’s interesting to speculate what would have happened if the Grand Fleet had some effective longrange aerial scouts at its disposal — that’s if they could have avoided the temptation, as the German navy could not, of expe…
…rted on outriggers situated in front. At the rear of the framework are two rudders controlling the upward or downward motion, and a larger rudder for guiding the machine to the right and left. The motor was worked yesterday and seemed to go very easily, making about 240 revolutions a minute. The rudders, too, were under perfect control.((Standard (London), 17 September 1904, 2.)) As for the actual flight on 14 October 1904, none of the British pre…
…s we invite proposals for papers addressing culture, history, heritage and design, both civil and military, broadly interpreted, throughout the world of aviation. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following: Aviation Archaeology: learning from the material remains; inquisition over acquisition Museums and Heritage: innovative ways to attract new audiences to aviation museums Indigenous Peoples and Aviation: the diverse aviation…
…ecame the R.101 and was known as the ‘Socialist’ ship. The Vickers Company designed the second airship, designated the R.100 and referred to as the ‘Capitalist’ ship, primarily for commercial applications.1 (I’m bolding the relevant phrases throughout this post.) More authoritatively, Douglas Robinson, in what is still probably the standard history of rigid airships, says: Inevitably the first craft, R 100 [sic], came to be called ‘the capitalist…
…s the day of the parashot! To prove that Liverpool isn’t all death and destruction, here’s the interior of Liverpool Cathedral, a typically massive and yet wonderfully light design by Giles Gilbert Scott, who of course is also responsible for Battersea Power Station (and the red phone box, among other things). Humblebrag: we managed to avoid the Beatles almost entirely! (Apart from a cute Fab Four-themed café we went to a couple of times.) Next st…
…ugh Williams-Ellis, last seen in these posts advocating for the aerial destruction of Stonehenge. The architecture is a fantastically out-of-place Italianate Baroque style. As nice a place for an ice cream as it is for a dystopia! ‘How Green Was My Valley‘ is a phrase that gets trotted out for images like this, probably, so I won’t be so dully conventional. This is in Snowdonia, a view (if my geolocating is to be trusted) down the Nant Gwynant val…
…operly comparing apples with oranges — and reassuringly, the RAF comes up trumps once more. Spaight argues that the old dogma that ‘the bomber will always get through’ no longer holds. It may have been true when Douhet, Baldwin and others uttered it, when bombers were almost as fast and as well-armed as fighters. But the Spanish Civil War showed that things had changed: In Spain the fighter pilot began to come into his own. Even when the comparati…
…xample is devoid of canvas on one side, in order to show the internal construction. This is the third airship car (or part thereof) I saw in London; it’s nice to know that something survived. This one is from the R33, one of the most successful of the large British rigid airships. (Quite possibly because it was based upon the design of a captured Zeppelin!) It was certainly fortunate: in 1925, it was blown away from its mooring mast in a gale — bu…
…creation is about to topple over!) The views from the Stone Gallery, which runs around the lower edge of the dome, are of course spectacular. This one is looking across the Millennium Bridge to the Tate. And near the Tate is the Globe Theatre, which I never got around to booking tickets to. Maybe next time (assuming it’s not swept away in the meantime, of course). The clock tower at the centre is St Pancras, which was one of several railway statio…
