The Boeing 314 Clipper was developed as a long-range flying boat capable of crossing the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean with a capacity of 77 daytime passengers and 36 nighttime passengers, with the seats being convertible into bunk beds. The first flight of the prototype 314 Clipper took place on the 7th of June 1938, piloted…
Spitfire! is a wonderful documentary that actually talks to some of the men and women directly involved with the iconic fighter aircraft’s design and construction – including a lady who accidentally ended up clinging to the tail of a Spitfire as it took off and had to circle back around to the airdrome. The film was…
The Lockheed YF-12 Interceptor was the aircraft that would go on to become the SR-71 Blackbird – one of the most famous of all the Skunk Works projects. The YF-12 was capable of Mach 3 and above, it set 9 world records for speed and altitude in a single afternoon (later surpassed by the SR-71),…
The Human Fly Challenges The Skies Of Mojave is a short documentary from 1975 showcasing the world’s first real life superhero – Rick Rojatt. Rojatt was a Canadian stuntman and sausage maker who became second only to Evel Knievel throughout the 1970s for worldwide fame and notoriety as a stuntman and daredevil. The first attempt…
Typically it’s not advisable to sit inside a jet engine, in fact I’m told it’s one of the first things they teach you when you get a job loading suitcases into commuter planes. This Boeing 737 engine cowling has been removed from a decommissioned jet and rebuilt by the team at Fallen Furniture in their Bath,…
A Century In The Sky is a timeline of the history of Boeing, the American aerospace giant that’s turning 100 years old this year. The 20th century saw the invention of powered flight in 1903, and the next 97 years were characterised by the lightning fast development of aircraft – often further accelerated in times of war…
In 1942 during some of the heaviest fighting of the Second World War a team of engineers at de Havilland were hard at work developing a jet-powered aircraft that they hoped would help turn the tide of the war and bring an end to the bloodshed. The jet engine had only been invented 5 years…
The Kawanishi H6K was a flying boat developed by the Japanese in the years leading up to WWII, it was largely based on European flying boats of the era and boasted remarkable endurance – with many of its wartime flights lasting 24 hours or more. With a crew of 9 and a cruising speed of…
The Brennan Helicopter was the brainchild of British inventor Louis Philip Brennan, a man who had been fascinated with the concept of the helicopter and had been developing his own designs since 1884. Perhaps his greatest innovation was the development of a flight-capable rotating wing aircraft that used twin propellers attached to the helicopter blades…
The story of Captain Eric Melrose “Winkle” Brown is one of the greatest WWII tales you’re every likely to come across. Many of us have seen dozens, perhaps even hundreds of documentaries about the Second World War, but this one is my favourite and I don’t think it’ll ever be usurped. It’s difficult to condense…
The Sound Barrier is an interesting look back at the time before supersonic flight was achieved, or even really understood. Years before Chuck Yeager became the first man to achieve controlled faster than sound flight, pilots during World War II who approached the barrier would lose control as airflow over the wing became unpredictable. The…
Flight Characteristics of the P-51 Airplane is a WWII film designed as a preliminary How To guide for pilots, mechanics and other ground crew. The film has a slightly more upbeat tone than you might expect, with the narrator cracking jokes throughout (at the expense of the Germans of course) and generally keeping it light and…
