TRIPPIN’—GOOD AND BAD
AS ANY HONEST GUIDEBOOK WILL TELL YOU, some things go fine on trips; others do not. In perusing Chronicle of Flight, I collected shorter tales for “Aviation 100 Years Ago,” … Continue reading
AVIATION—100 YEARS AGO
AWHILE BACK, I BEGAN A CELEBRATION OF aviation’s Golden Age starting in the Roaring Twenties. See “Chronicle of Aviation,” SimanaitisSays, April 25, 2021; and “Aviation Highlights—A Century Ago,” April 5, … Continue reading
MY PEARSE PROJECT
READERS MAY RECALL “NEW ZEALANDER RICHARD PEARSE—FIRST TO FLY?,” SimanaitisSays, March 22, 2014: “There’s evidence that on March 31, 1903—more than eight months before the Wright bros. epic flight—New Zealander … Continue reading
THE MAJESTIC 747’S FINAL DESCENT
TRUMP’S BROUHAHA WITH HIS QATAR 747 overflies the reality noted by Ian Bogost in “Queen of the Skies,” The Atlantic, July 2026: “The Boeing 747, the world’s first jumbo jet, … Continue reading
REMEMBERING THE GROUND OBSERVER CORPS PART 2
YESTERDAY, MY AEROBIBLIOGRAPHIC RECOLLECTIONS encountered Bruce Callander’s “The Ground Observer Corps,” Air & Space Forces Magazine. Today in Part 2, we continue gleaning tidbits from it, together with my (barely … Continue reading
REMEMBERING THE GROUND OBSERVER CORPS PART 1
I WAS LEAFING THROUGH MY AVIATION SHELVES, a collection, I immodestly note, better than in many secondhand bookshops I peruse from time to time. This includes gems such as “Jane’s … Continue reading
COUZINET 10—A SHORT TALE, A LENGTHY PROJECT
I BEGAN MY JUST COMPLETED GMAX PROJECT, THE COUZINET 10, on January 13, 2025. Fabrication of other aircraft (for example, the Consolidated PBY Catalina, the Kalilin K-12) and reporting about … Continue reading
HYPIN’ HOLMES REDUX PART 1
DR. JOHN H. WATSON HAD A CRACKIN’ GOOD literary agent Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. How else to explain the numerous ad placements about the World’s First Consulting Detective? Several of … Continue reading
GRANDE SEMAINE D’AVIATION DE LA CHAMPAGNE, 1909
IT WAS LESS THAN SIX YEARS after the Wright Bros. first flew ever so tentatively at Kitty Hawk that the world celebrated heavier-than-air craft at the Grande Semaine d’Aviation de … Continue reading
BELL AIRACOBRA/KINGCOBRA: INNOVATIVE AIRCRAFT, RUSSIAN FAV, ADVANCED EXPERIMENT, DON’T FORGET PINBALL PART 2
YESTERDAY THE BELL P-39 EXHIBITED advanced features combined with some faults. Today in Part 2 it becomes a Russian fav and has two unorthodox variants. Lend-Lease P-39s. Even with these … Continue reading
