James D Kightly

@jdkightly.bsky.social

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Does history - not an historian. Does aviation - not a pilot. Writes, reads, learns, communicates. Aviation Cultures Conferences. Interesting in many things. Freelance. He/him. Aviation content based at: https://vintageaerowriter.wordpress.

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A terrific discussion with Canada Aviation & Space Museum Curator Erin Gregory! We covered very significant aircraft, the new Cold War exhibition, dived deep into some of the modern museum challenges. You'll be able to hear and see the core discussion via Aviation Cultures, free, online, in August.

Found Maurice Farman Shorthorn VH-UBC (definitely ‘I’, or the first issue of UBC for the Australian civil register!) a long way from home. Acquired for Canada’s National Aviation Collection, 'via Hollywood', and now on show at Canada Aviation & Space Museum, Rockcliffe, ONT.

When people blather real historic aircraft 'should be flying!' (but can't be found when it's time to PAY for such activities) I find it tedious. But flying scale models of neat and rare things like this Vickers Wellesley pinned [PINNED I say!] to the ceiling, should be released to fly again...

I’m in North London, drinking in an area I’ve not been around for a good 15 years, to be greeted by this wonder

Tonight's Entertainment: Rewatching the very first Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes 'A Scandal in Bohemia'. Remembering it was the first, it's interesting to note what tone was chosen. Great cast, lovely nods to SPaget illustrations. Tristesse seeing Brett on best form, and wishing him a longer life.

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BREAKING -- New York Public Library for the win! After a massive public backlash, NYC's libraries are getting their funding back -- and will be open on Sundays again. Take a bow, folks -- WE did this.

Here's the then-RAF Museum's Dornier Do 24 loaded onto a trailer for transport to Holland. Donated to the RAFM, it was displayed in Spanish air-sea rescue colours for many years. But there's several elements to the story, inc who donated it, that you need to read in the Aeroplane Monthly Database...

I share this as SAT was a CIA not-very covert airline that didn't become as infamous as it should've (viz Air America, inc Movie, w Mel Gibson)... ...but also PNG saw the biggest pre-WWII airlift: for gold (like oil, but less messy) using extra large aircraft of THAT day, Junkers 'Peter' & 'Paul'.

Southern Air Transport supported Chevron's drilling in the (roadless) highlands of Papua New Guinea, from Nadzab. Chevron work, near Lake Kutubu, was totally dependent on SAT's L-100 Hercules. PNG has v challenging flying conditions, due to rapidly changing tropical weather and the rugged terrain.

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James D Kightly

💙📚 Talk about the books you love. Just posting the book cover and saying the book is significant to you is not enough. The cover alone is just like a pile of promo postcards or bookmarks, sitting unheralded on the bookstore counter (which customers rarely take with them). Your words matter.

A conversation on our Discord has prompted me to say again: remember, y'all, what really sells books is not the author talking about their work, but *readers* talking about it. Word of mouth drives far more sales than advertising or any other engine. So if you loved a book, tell your friends!

No.1: Just. Write. The Point: It's ALL built on that. No writing, you've got nothing. There are times not to write, of course, but if you don't have some time writing: return to the point. More words, messy words, fine. Short notes to build on fine. And so on. No writing: return to the point.

if u see this, quote-post with your tips for writers that no one gives anymore because they seem obvious (even though they're not)

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James D Kightly

Write first, edit later. Let the misspellings and bad grammar happen, just keep going. If you realize a whole para you just wrote is prolly trash, write UGH FIX THAT LATER, shake it off, and keep going. Editing will make it better, but editing can only happen when there is text to edit.

if u see this, quote-post with your tips for writers that no one gives anymore because they seem obvious (even though they're not)

100 Agree. The job of fighters is to control the sky. If you're doing air superiority right, there's nothing much LEFT to shoot down, and kill-counts are low. High kill counts by aces can just mean you're in a target rich environment ~ because you're losing. (Luftwaffe's 200+ aces, Eastern front.)

Allow me to go on a small rant here. I'm not a huge fan of "kill ratios" for fighters generally, but a ratio that is claims (what their own side said) to actual losses (what their own side lost in operational records) borders on worse-than-useless. Overclaiming was rampant in the Second World War.

All that 'dystopia's here, they've copied those movies', and this comes up in my timeline like it's a good thing. Have they SEEN the movie? I mean...

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James D Kightly

A wooden model of a Wellington that F/O Bob Butler gave to his nephew. He said it was painted with genuine paint. Bob flew operations as an air gunner with 99 and 218 Squadrons before before going missing in the North Sea on 23/24 Sept 1942.

I've been volunteering with the Royal Australian Air Force Museum, Point Cook, since 2005, and more recently supporting 100 Squadron RAAF, so it'll be quite the anniversary next year! Here's two responses to a recent tour we received:

Interesting musings by @alanallport.bsky.social . Further comments?

Musing on Britishness and the two world wars today (as you do). The Great War’s two dominant public figures were from the Celtic periphery: the (very) Welsh David Lloyd George and the (very) Scottish Douglas Haig. The SWW had no equivalents. Churchill was sui generis; Attlee very English in a …

Today's (5 years ago!) post on my 'A Year of Aviation Illustration & Art' is an interesting riff on the 'nose art' theme. Yes, it's a female, but it's from an artwork by a female artist, it's Diana the Huntress, and it's on the tail. Read on... yearofaviationillustration.home.blog/2019/06/27/d...

Dutch Dianayearofaviationillustration.home.blog A fascinating story here. Decorative art on aircraft (usually called 'nose art', though for obvious reasons not quite appropriate here) is nothing unusual, but the story behind this, current scheme is...

Concorde was an amazing technical achievement. With aspects that are still under appreciated. Here's a unique moment in the type's development. Including making holes in the cabin roof of a high-flying, pressurised, only partly-tested, supersonic prototype... vintageaviationnews.com/aviation-mus...

Preserved Concorde F-WTSS has a Unique Claim to famevintageaviationnews.com Chasing a shadow at supersonic speeds? Just one job this Concorde, today preserved near Paris, did in the 1970s.

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Emily Lakdawalla

I want to meet your wife at L.A. museums and critique them, that sounds hella fun. Let’s start at the Hammer Museum, which has the most hilarious disclaimer of an exhibit intro I have ever seen in any museum ever. “These works represent the taste of an industrialist[derogatory]…”

One of the neat posts I got to do 5 years ago today. 'Paper Tigers' on my A Year of Aviation Illustration & Art blog. Big thanks to Dr Kate Bagnall ( @baibi on Twitter when it was a functional comms place!) and Min Guo for help. yearofaviationillustration.home.blog/2019/06/26/p...

Paper Tigersyearofaviationillustration.home.blog Today's Poster is often listed online as 'Defend Singapore'. It's apparently a British Empire issued poster, with Chinese text (and no English in the main message). According to the details on the bo...

Props to Sir Elton John's choice when out of his tree going to buy a W Class Melbourne tram.

I once bought a Catwoman costume when shockingly drunk, but this is amateur hour by comparison to Sir Elton:

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James D Kightly

I'd wondered why the 1918 flu epidemic left such a small footprint in the movies/books/art of the time, but I get it better now.

The Thesis Whisperer does good stuff and good things. So I ask my PhD candidate and academic friends, lend her your feedback! Please.

New blog post: new survey thesiswhisperer.com/2024/06/25/o...

Our new survey is live – your help please?thesiswhisperer.com By now regular readers will know I’m obsessed with how academics work. Maybe it’s because I’m constantly trying to figure out how to work better myself (aren’t we all?). Or …

Herbert Paus covers of 'Popular Science'. Is flying Safe? Well... I'm a big fan of Paus' blocky, outlined style. Lost online - benefit of an unusual surname. More about him here: societyillustrators.org/award-winner...

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Reply to

Brett Holman

Here at the RAF Museum to meet the mysterious @exoticaviation.bsky.social

Years ago I posted on the neat 1950s 'Landseaire' flying yacht, as covered by Andrew Loomis of 'Life' magazine. Always good to introduce people to this surprisingly rare story, and for those that know it, I'm sure they won't mind seeing it again: vintageaerowriter.wordpress.com/2010/02/10/1...

1950 ‘Landseaire’ Air-Yachtvintageaerowriter.wordpress.com From the files of LIFE magazine's online material comes this magnificent glimpse into an aspirational travel opportunity from a different era. According to J Baugher's website, this was Consolidated P...

Last Night's Entertainment. Always a delight when a vaguely remembered movie proves better than you recalled. 1997's 'Shooting Fish': a very young Kate Beckinsale, Dan Futterman & Stuart Townsend, and cameos from Peter Capaldi & Phyllis Logan among other familiar faces. It's not perfect, great fun.

Here's a couple of other shots in Aeroplane Monthly's July 2024 Database on the Do 24 flying boat that didn't make the cut. A handsome young Dutch sailor posing with a Do 24. Why? Recruitment? The Permann Collection from the SDASM Archives.

From this day in 2019 on my Aviation Art & Design blog, a great, less-often seen painting by Roy Cross (Airfix and other scale model box art fame) on the English Electric Lightning. Roy was still with us in 2019 but died April 2024. Much missed. yearofaviationillustration.home.blog/2019/06/18/c...

Cross Lightningyearofaviationillustration.home.blog A painting by the remarkable Roy Cross (later well known for his Airfix kit box art) of the English Electric P-1B, later developed into the Lightning fighter, and advertising the Rolls Royce Avon engi...

Another item that I just LIKED when researching my Dornier Do 24 Database out in the July 2024 Aeroplane magazine: this great cover of the Dornier company house magazine, featuring one of the prototypes in the North Sea during the rough weather trials of the type. The N@zi symbol on the tail jars...