Echoes in the Sky

@exoticaviation

old aeromachines. oddities. concepts. old tales. sleek silver cigars. pedal-o-trons. war. action. occasional flying animal, stellar, and terrestrial guest stars

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Bluesky

¿Es tu perfil?Reclámalo y exoticaviation.dirty.social es tuyo.Reclamar perfil

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· 16h

“Concorde - 001's solar rendezvous", by Simon Cattlin (www.simoncattlin.com/gallery/001s...) a tribute to an actual event: this aircraft - still in the process of being tested - chased a solar eclipse over Africa for 70 minutes in 1973 (www.vice.com/en/article/t...)

oil painting. head-on aerial view of a Concorde high above the clouds. in the background, an eclipse in a jet-black sky casts a long shadow over the clouds under the aircraft, alongside a vivid blue horizon

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· 12d

I thought I’d finally take one of those “sausage leg” holiday photos from the beach, except the beach in this case is underneath a Su7BKM Fitter A 💅

Colour photo. Looking at beach legs lying down in the shade under a Cold War jet

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· 23d

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· 24d

I’m too tired to photoshop a smile on this Aerotécnica AC-12

Colour photo. A fairly old two-seat Spainish helicopter. No front windows. A front engine cowling with holes that look like
•_•

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· 29d

Edmonds confronted Wainwright in one of his trademark “gotcha” film crew moments, and he was jailed Wainwright returned to the US, where he had previously been involved in dodgy engine parts, and was jailed again He was last on the run in Kenya in 2000, after trying to sell a cure for AIDS 🤷‍♂️ 2/2

black and white still from a news report. Edmonds sitting in a wooden cockpit mockup frame

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· 29d

GUEST STAR: Noel Edmonds with a model of the “Hydro-Wing/Excalibur” powerboat, 1981 The man behind the venture, Basil Wainwright, was going to make Edmonds the fastest man on water ..but the Excalibur was a made-up project, and Edmonds lost a load of money 1/2

black and white photo. A smiling Edmonds holding the model aloft. The craft is incredible looking - the lower submerged part resembles a stretched, pointy miniature HOTOL spaceplane, with a fin leading up to the crew section, which looks like a curved, delta wing escape capsule of a spaceship

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· Jul 12

I went to a indie comics fair this weekend, and this offering by Matt Simmons (@sherifffreak.bsky.social) so perfectly encapsulated the spirit of the event that I may never remove these zines from their brown paper bag 🏅

A small brown paper bag with basic black felt tip writing: “FATHER OF DUNE: Four DUNE zines I made for my Dad, using my left hand”

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· Jul 12

The World Cup semi-final lineups are confirmed, and excitement is building..

the French Dyle et Bacalan DB-10, a weaponless bomber designed to fly over the enemy to send them mad - like the spiky ball thing in Event Horizon

the Spanish Libélula Viblandi early helicopter. Beguilingly erotic

the British Blackburn Blackburd, or “can we build a plane using Etch-a-sketch”

$the Argentine FMA I.Ae. 38 Naranjero cargo plane, one of the many post-war German projects ̄\_(ツ)_/ ̄$

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· Jul 5

William Quartermain's "Aërotransitor” ornithopter of 1887 after attempts to create a motor driven by “gases generated from vegetable products” failed, Quartermain turned to a human-powered flapping mechanism - much to the apparent disdain of his good wife 1/2

A smartly dressed, bearded, ageing, slightly portly old man stands in a cross between a fancy-roofed bathtub and balloon gondola holding one, possibly two, levers to flap two large pairs of wooden-framed wings protruding from the roof. in a potentially unique twist, the craft is situated directly in front of the front door of his house, which looks newly-built for the time. In the meantime doorway, a smartly darkly-dressed lady with a serious expression looks into the camera

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· Apr 21

From a longer poem called “The First Airman”, circa 1920 This excerpt appeared in the intro to the book “No Echo in the Sky”, by Westland test pilot Harald Penrose. He was also very much into birds, and wrote various tales of his observations while flying #WorldCurlewDay

“Give me the wings, magician! So their tune Mix with the silver trumpets of the moon, And, beyond music mounting, clean outrun The golden diapason of the sun.
There is a secret that the birds are learning
Where the long lanes in heaven have a turning And no man yet has followed: therefore these
Laugh hauntingly across our usual seas.
I'll not be mocked by curlews in the sky;
Give me the wings, magician, or I die.
HUMBERT WOLFE”

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· Apr 9

Inherited a nice camera and gannets - my favourite British bird - were a perfect test subject

Colour photo. A gannet launching itself downward off a rocky ledge, with another looking on, head slightly cocked in the classic bird way

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· Mar 26

NO, YOU’VE got an unfinished 1/72 model of a PZL.23 Karas in the back of your (very dirty) 1.6Xi Subaru Impreza 🤷‍♂️

quite simply an unfinished 1/72 model of a PZL.23 Karas in the back of a dark blue (very dirty) 1.6Xi Subaru Impreza

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· Mar 2

The opening sentence of BOMBERS (1942), by Charles Grey Grey - founding editor of THE AEROPLANE magazine (To his colleagues: “a gentle and kindly man”. Elsewhere: big fascist sympathiser with extreme right-wing views 🤷‍♂️)

“How The Bomber Developed

Man being the predatory animal which he is, naturally as soon as the idea of flying grew, there grew with it the unpleasant idea of dropping things on people..”

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· Mar 2

For no reason whatsoever, I was wondering if a F-15 (RIP) has ever been photographed alongside (or even in the same shot as) a member of the Sukhoi “Fitter” (RIP) family Maybe during one of the early 80s “Bright Star” exercises between the US and Egypt, but I think the Sukhoi was retired by then(?)

“An air-to-air top view [over desert and irrigated green fields] of U.S. and Egyptian aircraft in formation during the joint exercise Bright Star '83. The aircraft (clockwise from bottom right) are an Egyptian F-4 Phantom II, Mirage 2000, MiG-17, American A-6 Intruder, Egyptian MiG-15, American A-7 Corsair II, Egyptian MiG-21, Egyptian F-16B Fighting Falcon, and an American F-14 Tomcat, center”

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· Jan 29

Here’s the Titov in the background, behind Soviet scientist Dr Andrei Smyslov (Leonard Rossiter!!) It’s likely the Titov was a rejected design for the more well-known Orion spaceplane (the one that docks with the space station with all the music and the spinning and the air hostessing) 2/2

Screengrab of Leonard Rossiter on a red couch in a minimalistic white space station lounge. The Hilton office cubicle is behind, the Titov model on the desk

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· Jan 29

a 1/144 model of the "Titov V" spaceplane from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY this appears briefly in the novel, and in the movie script - but made it to screen only as a blurry model on a desk in the space station's Hilton Hotel (Aeroflot cabin crew are visible in the scene) 1/2

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· Jan 28

“The Space Shuttle Challenger, atop a mobile launch platform, slowly moves through Florida fog to Launch Pad 39A in preparation for its first liftoff, Kennedy Space Center, Florida, US, 30th November 1982" (via www.flickr.com/photos/sdasm...)

Colour photo. Long-distance aerial shot of Challenger on the vehicle. The low fog resembles a dust storm, with a long thin shadow of the shuttle cast across it

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· Jan 21

"I'm not being controlled, I'm standing up for myself for the first time in my life...I wake up every morning grateful for the life I chose, and have found peace and relief"

Brooklyn Beckham, holding a copy of A J Jackson's "Blackburn Aircraft since 1909" (Putnam)

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· Jan 20

in 1843, Frenchman Émile Gire patented a steam-powered (aeolipile) balloon, armed with bombs and a cannon “FR-1843-11213: Means and Methods of Directing Aerostats, Without Using Ballast, and Their Application as a War Machine” this was one of the first “serious” proposals for an armed aerial craft

Old book illustration. A balloon over a countryside of smoking and exploding buildings. Under the balloon is a smaller sphere - presumably related to the aeolipile steam turbine. Underneath this is a very large bowl-shaped gondola, with two aeronauts busy. A large rudder is attached to the gondola, and it looks like a cannonball is being fired. The caption is “Le ballon à éolipyle d'Emile Gire (1843)”

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· Jan 19

Supermarine Spitfire “TZ138” at the 1949 Cleveland Air Races. It survives, registered as C-GSPT, in Vancouver This has a heady history, like so many from the era. Owners across North America, accidents and incidents, e.g. "damaged in Florida by Castro supporters" aerialvisuals.ca/AirframeDoss...

black and white photo, the polished metal Spitfire in flight, banking past a race pylon. It has the number "80" and a small Canadian Air Force roundel on the side of the fuselage, on a thin lightning trim

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· Jan 13

At the moment, OnlyPhantoms™ content is too niche and disgusting for public advertising

Grainy colour photo of a grey RAF Phantom, with its radome open and seemingly hanging from a thread, about to crash. Both canopies are open (there were no fatalities)

A camouflaged USAF F-4D missing a radome (AAA fire over Laos, 1968). The rear canopy is open (the pilot ordered the operator to eject, but managed to crash-land. No fatalities)

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· Jan 13

Metroid > John Cena/Spongebob

Colour photo - closeup of F-15E nose art (the aircraft is in flight against a blue sky). John Cena (or John Chena, if you are Santino Marella), with red cap and sweat bands, is saluting next to SpongeBob Squarepants

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· Jan 12

Her Majesty's V-Bomber Force (taken by ME - of all people, can you Adam and Eve it - at the Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum back in 2013. these are now all at different locations)

Colour photo. Taken from a path with buddleia. mounted Vulcan, Valiant, and Victor nose sections - next to each other - in front of a large corrugated iron shed. the Valiant is looking particularly sad, cockpit shrouded and nose missing

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· Jan 5

For Hayao Miyazaki’s birthday, two creations that I put together over the Xmas break. The Laputa robot model was in a box for over a decade, and it felt like time to build it

Colour photo. A Porco Rosso “paper theatre” - a small “box” consisting of five layers of scenery - stands next to an olive-green model of a robot soldier from Laputa/Castle in the Sky (minus arm spikes and moss)

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· Jan 4

note the bandages on Amy and her (then..) husband They suffered minor injuries 6 days earlier in the crash of the "Seafarer", a DH.84 Dragon they had flown from the UK. New York was the intended end-point of the translatlantic trip, but they came down in Bridgeport CT. 2/2

Black and white photo. The Seafarer, taken from another aircraft close above and to the side. The aircraft has a monotone paint scheme (I think black), with a St George Cross on the tail, “Seafarer” written in a fancy font along the front side fuselage, and “G-ACCV” across the top of the wings and rear side fuselage. It is flying above water, possibly near a coastline judging from the broken waves

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· Jan 4

“L-R: George Palmer Putnam, Mrs. Putnam, the former Amelia Earhart, Mrs. Amy Mollison nee Johnson and Capt Jim Mollison basking in the sand at Rye, New York on 29/07/33. The flying Britons celebrated their first wedding anniversary with the Putnams." apimagesblog.com/historical/2... 1/2

Black and white photo. The four sitting on sand, in dark bathing suits and vests. Other beachgoers, and a promenade behind them. Johnson has bandages and scars on her legs, and a plaster on a finger. Mollison, wearing a sun visor(?) has bandages on one side of his face, and on his hand. They don’t look entirely happy

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· Jan 1

imagining an alternate reality where ungainly, gold-embossed Louis Vuitton helicopters splutter across idyllic countryside vistas - these were his grandchildren! "Prototype Jean et Pierre VUITTON, 1909"

Black and white photo - a moustached Frenchman in overalls and beret sits on a metal chair attached half way up a square pyramid frame. above are two sets of four oar-like rotor blades, and a second frame ends in a small two-blade pusher. he is being observed by a man on top of a balcony in this warehouse

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· Dec 20

The Fairey Tail of Newark..

Clip from a colour photo. The tail section of a Fairey Gannet at the Newark Air Museum

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· Nov 25

Culley engaged & downed the Zeppelin - the last of the war - at 19,000ft the lighter he launched from was being towed by HMS Redoubt, and Cullen managed to find the destroyer, ditch, and be rescued, along with his Sopwith Camel - now at IWM London! (rafmuseum.org.uk/blog/flying-...) 2/2

black and white photo, looking back at the lighter being towed, with the Camel on board. Various officers and crew are milling around on the platform, and some ships can be seen in the distance

Echoes in the Sky@exoticaviation· Nov 25

Lt Stuart Culley launches from a "lighter" - a barge used to tow flying boats - fitted with a take-off platform, to attack Zeppelin L53 off the coast of the Netherlands, 11/08/1918.. incredible art by Keith Ferris (keithferrisart.com/product/just...) 1/2