This is an original Concorde attitude display indicator, oftentimes referred to as an artificial horizon. As with many aircraft, the attitude display indicator on the Concorde was positioned front and center for both the captain and co-pilot – directly above the horizontal situation indicator, to the right of the air speed indicator, and to the…
The Tupolev A-3 Aerosledge The Tupolev A-3 Aerosledge is an unusual curiosity from the depths of the cold war, the CIA and MI6 doubtless had thick folders on the craft as it was used for collecting both cosmonauts and crashed pilots in the remote areas of Siberia. Alexei Tupolev of the Tupolev Design Bureau originally developed…
The TobyRich Moskito is a $49.98 USD remote controlled airplane that you pilot using an iPhone, iPad, or Android smartphone. It wasn’t that many years ago that R/C aircraft were an expensive hobby enjoyed by relatively few – with a significant barrier to entry thanks to the fact that it was commonplace for rookie pilots…
The Immortal Beaver – The World’s Greatest Bush Plane is a documentary that covers both the history of the de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver, and the recovery and restoration of “Olivia” – a former military Beaver that received a full restoration back to flying condition. The film includes interviews with Harrison Ford who is famously…
The Spitfire Pen is a creation of the Hordern Richmond Aircraft Company, they’ve been in business since 1937 when the company was founded by Frederick Gordon-Lennox (the 9th Duke of Richmond) and Edmund Hordern. During WWII they built many of the propellers for British fighters and bombers, as well as the Hordern Richmond Autoplane. In…
The Douglas DC-3 is remembered as one of the most important aircraft of the 20th century – largely because of the way it revolutionised commercial passenger flight. The aircraft was designed and built to fulfill an order for Transcontinental and Western Airlines (TWA), who wanted to compete with the new Boeing 247 being flown by…
Chuck Yeager is now 94 years old, and amazingly he’s very active on Twitter – where his famously fearless personality is on full display, sharing his views, cracking jokes, and chatting with fans around the world. This film is from decades before Twitter was created, covering the now legendary feat that launched Yeager into the…
This original USAF training film from 1960 gives a 20 minute introduction to the art of dogfighting in fighter jets – otherwise known as Air Combat Maneuvering. At the beginning of the 1960s jet fighters were still relatively new, the first having been flown only 15 or so years prior. That said, men had been…
The story of the Sopwith Dove cannot be told without first talking about the Sopwith Pup – the Dove being the far less common two-seat variant of the WWI fighter plane. The Sopwith Pup The Sopwith Aviation Company never particularly liked the name Pup, it was a nickname given to their single-seat fighter plane by…
Flying the Lindbergh Trail runs approximately an hour in length, it (unsurprisingly) follows Charles Lindbergh’s journey down the length of Central and South America in one of the 150 Sikorsky S-42s owned by Pan American Airways. It appears to have been filmed in the late 1930s or 1940s by the look of the cars on the streets, and…
This is the original United States Army Air Forces training film for trainee pilots of the North American B-25 Mitchell – a tough-as-nails bomber that served in every theater of World War II and stayed in active service for over 40 years. Over 10,000 B-25 Mitchells were built and there are many airworthy examples still…
The Last African Flying Boat is a vintage documentary covering the recreation of an aerial tour from Egypt to South Africa by flying boat. The film includes footage of the first flying boats in Africa as well as more modern examples, and the insight into the difficulties of traveling across Africa are well documented. The…
