Herbert Paus Popular Science cover, March 1930
This cover illustration by American commercial artist Herbert Paus shows Germany’s giant flying boat, the Dornier Do-X, cruising over New York City. It was entirely conjectural: the plane left its home port of Altenrhein, Switzerland for America in November 1930, but didn’t reach New York until almost 10 months later, on August 27, 1931.
“London Airport” - The beginnings of Heathrow
Newspaper delivery plane, Berlin 1930 “The caption for this photo from a 1930 German book about aviation reads: Airplane as newspaper carrier. The “Berliner Zeitung am Mittag” is carried in its own airplanes to every corner of the country. The newspaper bails are stowed in the cargo area in a particular order. The pilot, flying over the launch sites, needs only to push a number key on the control panel; the appropriate trap door of the cargo hold opens, and the stowed newspaper bundles fall out.”
Sikorsky helicopter, night exposure, Feb. 1949 by Andreas Feininger
USS Macon under construction, Akron, Ohio, late 1932
For some reason I’m a big fan of flying boats, and this one had jet engines, so I had to feature it.
(via Saunders-Roe SR.A/1)
THE END OF THE PLAIN PLANE - 1965
First Chinese Air Mail Stamps, 1921
‘One also has to look up, to make sure some aeronaut doesn’t land on one’, 1900
Translation:
“Our lot is not to be envied. On the road, one has to be careful that one doesn’t ride over broken glass and into pedestrians; one has to watch that one isn’t run over by an automobile; and now that airship navigation has made so much progress, one also has to look up, to make sure some aeronaut doesn’t land on one.”
‘ROBOT’ FLYING PLANE, 1925
