…ike a boat with wings, but which in reality was reputedly a flying machine designed to revolutionise the modes of travelling […] The contrivance consists of a small boat with two masts, to which is attached four wings of sail canvas’.4 This was again towed behind a car, But the machine absolutely refused to fly. The motor put on full spead ahead, the eight strong men, holding up the wings, manfully struggled along, anon splashing into mud holes; t…
…e, Long Island) and made nearly one hundred flights (albeit usually with a human on board). So that fits. But I can’t find anything about any flight over New York City, though many accounts note one machine flew out to sea and was never seen again. More importantly, experiments with the N-9 seem to have ceased in January 1919, when the US Navy ended Sperry’s contract. The Navy apparently did continue some experiments with pilotless aircraft into t…
…ed, balloons are hardly cutting edge; in fact, they are the oldest form of human flight, 240 years old this year. And for surveillance they seem completely outclassed by satellites. There are some advantages balloons possess in terms of loiter ability, and they are more steerable than they used to be, especially at stratospheric heights. But I don’t think it can be argued that anxiety about balloon espionage has been building over the last few yea…
…ate Cold War seems to have had largely abandoned formal doctrine). Number crunching has its limitations, particularly when it comes to less crunchable topics like morale, but I found this approach generally persuasive. While Shields does attempt to provide some strategic and operational context, this is not the book to go to for a blow-by-blow account of the air war over the Falklands. But it may well be the book you go to find out where the previ…
…d – would have died in one final holocaust of the most blood-soaked war in human history.6 This is ridiculous. There is no possibility that the tiny German bomber force of 1918 could have achieved what the much bigger German air force of 1940 could not. This is where seductive talk of First Blitzes and Fire Plans gets you. Moving on. The narrow ‘strategy’ issue I have with First Blitz relates to the above quote. Hanson describes what was in effect…
…near the Junction Station, was also used as a shelter, the Railway Company running a train into it for the accommodation of those wishing to take cover there. At the time there were no trains running to or from Dover, owing to the line having been wrecked by the landslip at the end of 1915. The shelter under the Leas Parade (near the lift) was also available as a refuge.6 As was so often the way of things, these measures designed to assuage anxiet…
…the bird-watching but not about the meltdowns! He always did seem highly-strung … I will take your other suggestion under advisement :) Gavin: I haven’t heard of them, which doesn’t prove much either way. Interesting question! I’d say yes, but it’s even more true of WWII, and in a different way. Australians do criticise the British over WWI, but it’s like an exaggerated form of the “lions led by donkeys” myth: stupid British generals sending bra…
…e Elgin Marbles weren’t impressive: this scene shows part of the eternal struggle between centaurs and humans. The Trentham Lady, so-called because it stood for much of the 19th century overlooking the gardens at Trentham Hall in Shropshire, owned by the Duke of Sutherland. It may have been made in Greece originally, in the 2nd or 1st centuries BC, but was later re-used as a funerary statue for one Publia Maximina in the 1st century AD. A line of…
…untries but to the whole world would have disappeared for ever and the destruction of human life would have been appalling. He asks if this is not an opportune moment to try to reach an international agreement to prohibit the bombing of architectural and historical treasures in the great cities? (King-Farlow was a former chief justice in places like Gibraltar and Cyprus, so perhaps it’s not surprising that he turned to the law.) Cosmo Lang, the Ar…
…hat has happened. ‘Planes have been used by people with an ape mind, not a human mind. That is the danger we are up against. Science will run away from us altogether and we shall destroy civilisation unless there is a controlling power, and the first controlling power should be that of the prevention of war. Unless we have a Federal Union which has an overriding Government over and above national sovereignties I do not see how we can prevent war….
