For the pilot in every enthusiast and the enthusiast in every pilot
I started the other day berating myself over the time it’s been since my last post. Maybe I’m still exhausted from the Merlin Mustang story – it’s not over yet, by the way – and it’s not like there aren’t more stories in the pipeline In fact, the current iteration of my schedule includes a chance for four solid hours of writing per week, which
Part Two: All the way with N.A.A. As we’ve seen in Part One of this story, the British – and Rolls-Royce specifically – hold pride of place on the Merlin Mustang’s birth certificate. But the reality is that while Rolls-Royce had built a brilliant engine, their experiments with the Mustang were something of a dead end. The P-51 s future would be made in the USA.
Part One: The British breakthrough that didn’t There are a lot of ways to end a sentence that begins “If it weren’t for the Rolls-Royce Merlin…” In fact, it would be a fun parlour game next time the avgeeks got together. If it weren’t for the Rolls-Royce Merlin… the Cromwell tank would have been a tin pillbox could be one slightly off-piste option. But I
One of the few responsibilities that are attached to my membership of the South Australian Aviation Museum (SAAM) is an “obligation” to help out on the front desk about once a quarter. Behind the scenes I say “obligation” in quotes because it is hardly a chore. Desk duty involves setting up, greeting visitors and processing their payments, then closing up afterwards. There are generally three
As the western world heaved itself up from the trauma of World War II, the future must have seemed as bright as a new-polished silver cup. True, nearly anything would be brighter than the six years of horror and heartbreak that had come before, but the world at large was far richer for the industry and innovation that had been marshalled to beat back the
Back in the days when aircraft designers used slide rules and genius, one of Britain’s best sat down to address the widening gap between his country’s front-line fighters and those of her arch-rival Germany. As a private venture project, he was free to pour everything he knew about air fighting and aerodynamics into his design. From its radically streamlined fuselage to its elegantly curved wing,
Beyond the limits In part one of this series, artists of the early 20th Century imagined voids in their illustrations of primordial airliners to demonstrate the comfort and complexity of mankind’s latest leap forward. By the late 1930s, however, and certainly by the end of World War II, aviation was becoming vastly more sophisticated. Engineering, on the other hand, remained tethered to the…
Under the skin These days, 3D CAD and sophisticated rendering tools mean creating images that aren’t rooted in reality is a breeze. For most commercial applications, it’s the norm. For example, I follow developments in electric aviation fairly actively, and the fact that last night’s beer coaster brainwave can be a fully rendered, photo-realistic artefact by lunchtime is clearly a real bonus for…
Enter the mind of a WW2 Japanese volunteer suicide pilot... This is the extraordinary diary of Masa’aki Saeki, trainee Yokosuka MXY-7/K-1 Ohka pilot, 721st Kōkūtai Jinrai Butai, Imperial Japanese Navy. Translated by Nicholas Voge.
Enter the mind of a WW2 Japanese volunteer suicide pilot... This is the extraordinary diary of Masa’aki Saeki, trainee Yokosuka MXY-7/K-1 Ohka pilot, 721st Kōkūtai Jinrai Butai, Imperial Japanese Navy. Translated by Nicholas Voge.