Here’s a brief, fascinating British Pathe newsreel from 1930 showing us The Handley Page HP–42 (nicknamed the Hannibal), a giant British four-engine biplane airliner designed by Handley Page. Introduced by Imperial Airways in 1931, it was the largest airliner in the world at the time. Built mostly from metal and fabric, it was
Here’s some extraordinary, silent footage of World War 1 fighter planes, formation flyers and various battle-ready airplanes in action. First we see mostly the fast Bristol 2 Seaters which had a rear gunner, a sting in the tail of the ‘Brisfits’, the first successful fighter/bomber combo, a deadly aircraft when
Apropos of yesterday’s post showing the evolution of RKO studio’s logos, here’s a reel of logos from some of the most obscure in-the-gutter strictly-from -hunger low-rent low-budget low-self-esteem studios the movie business ever created. Names like ‘Invincible Pictures’, ‘Mascot Studios’, ‘Chesterfield Pictures’ sound like companies invented by a novelist for
I must confess to never having quite ‘gotten’ Palm Springs. I like it a little–the term ‘small doses’ was invented for the place as far as I’m concerned. But the deep and devoted love for the desert that its adherents–er–adhere to strikes me as perverse. The desert is defined by
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1peQ5iagq7shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoBVNmZS9wI During the early days of World War 2, the phrase ‘Keep ‘Em Flyin’” was used on propoganda posters to encourage voluntary enlistment in the Army Air Corps. So popular was the phrase that it became the title of a 1941 Abbott and Costello vehicle. Above is a strange hybrid
In 1941 my father was an Army Air Corps grunt who was enlisted for flight training in the event a war were to occur (it was still several months prior to December 7, but as he used to tell me ‘the war was in the air’). There were three training
For the past couple of years I’ve been comparing where we currently are with Artificial Intelligence with where we were in 1994-1995 with the internet; alternately impressed and scared, dismissive and fascinated, eager to figure out how to use it to give us some kind of advantage we never thought
Venice Beach, California, has always been a home for freaks. It was built for freakish reasons–to resemble Venice, Italy which it doesn’t at all–and was captured on film by freaky genius filmmakers; Orson Welles used it to sub for Tiajuana in ‘Touch of Evil’, Charlie Chaplin filmed ‘Kid Auto Races
Formation flying is an exacting and treacherous art–it’s still done and it’s still beautiful to behold, but it’s now greatly aided by technological communication. In the earliest days, however, there were no Bose headsets or radio transmission between pilots to be had, so the entire feat was accomplished using hand
Above is one of the dullest, driest, least charming training films about airplanes that I’ve ever seen. I love it. If you’re enraptured by vintage aviation then you will too. If you’re not I suggest you watch it as an alternative to taking the Quaalude that you may not have