I've always liked the lines of the Napier-Heston Racer. I think it was far more appealing than its contemporary, the Spitfire MkI, though it was intended for a very different purpose, of course. It could easily have been ungainly, especially with its tail wheel faired into the fin and the short rear fuselage, but it uses elements that foreshadow at least two highly successful aircraft of the later war period: The ventral radiator ducts and symmetrical section laminar-flow aerofoils that distinguished the North American Mustang and the raked undercarriage legs of the Hawker Typhoon and Tempest. Despite its rather voluptuous mid-section and consequent chunky 'ankle' it is quite simply stunningly beautiful.
Posts
4 comments:
Compare the Heston Racer with the aproximately contemporary DH Albatross and the work of brilliant designer A E Hagg (dH 88 Comet, Mosquito, Hornet and Ambassador) shines out clearly. Notwithstanding Mr Hagg's mastery of curves, the Spitfire world speed record attempt aircraft takes the biscuit in my opinion because its unparalleledly beautiful lines and proportions have never been improved on.
The Airspeed Ambassador?
A lovely aircraft. I still recall the crash of an 'Elizabethan' that was carrying race horses in the late 60s, and the infantile comment of one of my horsey female cousins that the crew and grooms should have been sacrificed to save the horses. She clearly thought it was a very grown up, and emasculating, thing to say.
I have a book, somewhere, now falling apart but published in about 1949/50 (rescued from the library of the 'Comprehensive' that I had to attend for two years before selection for an 'upper school' - the consequence of a compromise between the Conservative controlled LEA and Wilson's government of 1964 - 70) that I'm sure you'd enjoy reading. It's stuffed with lovely half-tone images of long vanished masterpieces. I think it's in Berwick-upon-Tweed at present, sadly.
Should I ever win an obscenely large amount of money on the Euro Lottery I plan to acquire a DH88. Of all civilian aircraft I think it the most beautiful and graceful.
Hagg was a very talented designer.
Yes, the same sort of Ambassador that crashed at Munich in 1958 as well. There's a beautifully restored example at Duxford if you're ever over that way.
Amazing how the aircraft industry in this country grew from sheds to a massive industry that made every part of an aircraft that could fly at mach 2 and then shrank to its present state in well under a hundred years. How many children nowadays know the names of the pioneers like H-P, DH, Sopwith, let alone top-rank designers like Mitchell, Camm, Dobson and Barnwell? My favourite book in junior school was a doorstopper jam-packed with line drawings of thousands of aircraft from the late19th century to the 1960s. I copied many of the sketches and improved my drawing and the wonderful names of aircraft inspired a love of language. That single book lit my love of learning. Yet one teacher thought her class should adopt her tastes and, as she had no interest in military aircraft especially, at a parents' evening she advised my parents to remove the book from me. I hope that bitch of a teacher died screaming.
Don't start me on teachers.
I knew some horrors but those I really detest were the bitches who taught my daughter at the 'Dame School' that was marginally better than the the state schools round about. One in particular is deserving of ire: She told my six year old daughter that her story about a spider who came from a broken home and her tale about a rock that had human form and came alive when the tide came in were rubbish.
I hate that bitch to this day and I hope she rots in whatever hell there is for atheists (like me) after death.
Post a Comment