BARNSTORMING—THOUGH NOT IN THE AIR
BARNSTORMING MAY EVOKE images of wing-walking and other aerial hijinks. Actually, though, I learned that the term “barnstorming” predates the aeroplane by decades. Here are tidbits of barnstorming, summer stock, … Continue reading
BLÉRIOT 125 PART 2
YESTERDAY, WE LEARNED about Louis Blériot’s enthusiasm for air transport, as exemplified in his company’s development in the early 1930s of the innovative Blériot 125. Today in Part 2, here … Continue reading
HENRI’S LIMO PART 3
PIONEER AIRCRAFT MODELS are fun to build on the computer. Not just sleek shiny tubes, they have everything hanging out to admire. My rendering of Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe’s … Continue reading
BAMBERG TO ROME, 1926—AND VIRTUALLY 2021
WHEN I COMPLETE modeling an airplane for my Microsoft Flight Simulator, I typically fool with it a couple times on the sim, then go on to a new GMax project. … Continue reading
THE ANTONOV AN-2—A CLASSIC SOVIET
AIRCRAFT, BY VIRTUE of their technology and engineering, are sleek and well-finished. Unless they’re the Antonov An-2, affectionately known as the “Aннушка,” “Annushka,” “Annie.” Close up, an Aннушка looks like … Continue reading
BEL GEDDES AIRLINER NUMBER 4 PART 2
NORMAN BEL GEDDES had a grand design evolving between 1929 and 1932: His Airliner Number 4 was envisioned as a flying hotel traveling non-stop between Chicago and London in 42 … Continue reading
BEL GEDDES AIRLINER NUMBER 4 PART 1
IT’S A SIGNIFICANT understatement to call Norman Bel Geddes an industrial designer: His designs were artistic, innovative, eccentric, flamboyant, occasionally bordering on the wacky, hardly just “industrial.” Here in Parts … Continue reading
MR. DUNNE’S FLYING WING—IN 1910! PART 2
JOHN WILLIAM DUNNE was more than a pioneer aviator. His D.5 aeroplane displayed the extreme innovation of a flying wing, almost a century before Northrup’s B-2 stealth bomber. And his … Continue reading
MR. DUNNE’S FLYING WING—IN 1910! PART 1
JUST SEVEN YEARS after the Wright Brothers demonstrated controlled, heavier-than-air, powered flight, British aviator John Dunne designed and piloted his flying wing: The 1910 D.5 was a tailless swept-wing craft … Continue reading
FLYING THE OISEAU BLEU OF HAPPINESS PART 2
YESTERDAY PART 1 FOCUSED on the actual Farman F.180 Oiseau Bleu (Bluebird) and its Paris/London service in the 1920s and 1930s. In Part 2 today, my GMax modeling of the … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 