Tracey Curtis-Taylor finishes UK to Australia biplane flight

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana" (as the late, great Sir Terry Wogan once said) and once again time has indeed flown by - like an arrow, if not like a banana - since my last post on here.  You can't keep a good blogger down, though, so here I am again with a news item from last month featuring a wonderful lady adventurer who this blogger greatly admires.



Tracey Curtis-Taylor finishes UK to Australia biplane flight 

I've featured the adventures of modern-day aviatrix Tracey Curtis-Taylor on this blog before, specifically when she set out a couple of years ago in her 1942 Boeing Stearman biplane to retrace the route taken by the pioneer female pilot Lady Mary Heath from England to Cape Town, South Africa in 1928.  That journey was subsequently made into a B.B.C. documentary and jolly fascinating it was too.

Towards the end of last year Ms Curtis-Taylor undertook a new challenge - to follow the same route Amy Johnson took on her famous England-Australia flight of 1930.  In the same Stearman biplane as before Ms Curtis-Taylor took off from Farnborough in Hampshire in October to make the 14,000-mile journey across Europe, the Middle East, India, South-East Asia and Australia, just as Amy Johnson had done more than 80 years previously.

As the above article explains, Ms Curtis-Taylor landed at Sydney airport on the 9th January, thereby completing this massive trek and following in the slipstream of one of her inspirations and a proper heroine.   Tracey Curtis-Taylor is both of these as well, not only for her remarkable recreations of historic endurance flights but also for helping to keep the memory of these early aviatrices alive today, not to mention her involvement in encouraging more young women into the field of mechanical engineering.

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Tracey Curtis-Taylor mentions "not wanting to stop [flying]" in the above clip and the good news is she that she isn't intending to any time soon.  That report briefly mentions the shipping of her aeroplane to Seattle for Boeing's centenary celebrations next year, but before that Ms Curtis-Taylor has stated her intention to fly her biplane across the breadth of the United States as her next adventure and I for one can't wait to follow her progress on this new feat of endurance, continuing to emulate the pioneer women pilots of the early 20th century.  Congratulations, Ms Curtis-Taylor, and the best of luck on your next endeavour!

**Further good news in relation to this story is that the B.B.C. will be broadcasting another documentary later this year following Tracey Curtis-Taylor's England-Australia flight.  No details have been released as yet but expect it to be shown on one of the main B.B.C. channels some time in the Spring.**

A very belated "Hello", a slightly belated "Merry Christmas" and a not-quite-belated Happy New Year

Well hello, hello! and once again a thousand apologies for letting this blog lie dormant for over 2 months.  I wouldn't blame you if you thought I'd dropped off the edge the Earth; the truth, however, is more boring than that - I simply haven't been able to find the time, nor for that matter anything much of a vintage bent to blog about (although you can still read my writings in In Retrospect magazine - subscribe today!).  I have to say it's been a very busy time for me work-wise (although as I've said before that's really no excuse) and the daily news since October seems to have been bereft of vintage interest.

However, now it's Christmastime (still, just!) and 2016 looms large!  I hope to do better than the measly thirteen posts I've managed this whole year just gone and although you're probably all fed up with me saying this, I promise Eclectic Ephemera will continue.  So, without further ado -

Christmas presents!

Christmas this year was again a quiet one, spent with the folks and sadly not featuring either of my sisters since one of them came down with a tummy bug on the day itself (although she's over it now, I'm told).  Better luck next year, eh?!

The folks' and my presents gathered around the, erm, coffee table. 
No traditional tree for them this year for reasons I won't bore you with.

As an aside I'm delighted to tell you that this post is the first to feature photographs taken on my new digital camera!!  Yes, after over 10 years of somehow managing on a 3 megapixel, 3x zoom Nikon Coolpix that has been outclassed by most mobiles since at least 2007 I finally got around to upgrading to something better (just as everyone else has made the switch to camera phones and Instagram) - a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX90 for any of you camera buffs out there.  Still, I'm nothing if not old-fashioned and have been delighted with my choice; so from now on any photos on here that were taken by me will be in glorious high-definition whereby you will actually be able to see the subject matter without squinting.  As an example, here's a robin which with the old camera would have appeared as a small dot in the centre of the picture:

As you can probably tell, I'm still learning the intricacies of this new box-brownie!

As befits a small family Christmas the presents were high in quality rather than quantity.  As such I've augmented them in the following daguerreotypes with other things that were either treats to myself in the run up to the festivities or items purchased in the subsequent sales (hot off the shelves today, in fact!).

I am, and always have been, a terrible bibliophile.  I admit it, I love books.  This would be less of a problem if I had a place to store them all (something I hope to rectify in 2016) but it doesn't stop me from buying or requesting more!  This Christmas was no exception, with books including The Complete Saki (if you don't know of H.H. Munro, or Saki as his pen-name was, I advise you to search out his works for he wrote in much the same vein as Oscar Wilde and P.G. Wodehouse - and indeed bridged the gap between the two era-wise until his untimely death in the First World War), The Treasures of Noël Coward; also a delightful little book detailing the on-screen adventures of those two archetypal British chaps Charters and Caldicott and an hilarious spoof 19th century cricket compendium entitled W.G. Grace Ate My Pedalo.

The book is laugh-out-loud funny and can easily be enjoyed by even those with just a passing interest in the game; it's very much in the same vein as The Chap magazine and books.

Then of course there's the almost mandatory calendar - or in this case calendars.  Featuring steam trains, naturally!  One for home, the other for the office, and both come with matching diaries - now there's really no excuse for me to miss any appointments!

And finally, the box set of one of my favourite (and much-overlooked) period murder-mystery dramas - the early 2000s American series entitled A Nero Wolfe Mystery.  Starring Timothy Hutton as Archie Goodwin and the late Maury Chaykin as Nero Wolfe, this programme was - in my opinion - one of the best things to come out of American television since Frasier, but sadly it has been all but forgotten since, with only a few desultory repeats on B.B.C. Two in the late 2000s and a few episodes available on a Region 2 DVD Dutch release.  Fortunately I managed to track down this Region 0 Australian import featuring all the episodes.

I featured Timothy Hutton's portrayal of Archie Goodwin as one of my "Style Icons" back in 2012, and I may yet devote another post to this wonderful series in the future.

Oh, and some neckties.  Because a chap can never have enough ties, can he?(!)

Well, it only remains for me to wish you all a happy and health New Year!  I'll be celebrating quietly at home myself but I hope everyone has a fun time whatever they're up to.  Thanks again to all my readers, followers and visitors for sticking with me through a somewhat sparse 2015 (blogging-wise) and I hope to see you all, old and new, afresh in 2016.

Cheerio for now!

28.5-litre Fiat S76 runs for first time in over 100 years

28.5-litre Fiat S76 runs for first time in over 100 years

Back in November 2011 I wrote a long post about the history of the aeroplane-engined motor car and included many incredible examples of much machines, such as the mighty 21½-litre Blitzen Benz from 1909, Fiat's 21.7-litre Mephistopheles, plus later additions like 47-litre BMW Brutus and the similarly-displacing Packard-Bentley Mavis.  Now it is the turn of another of those century-old leviathans to come under the spotlight - the 1911 Fiat S76.

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Built in response to the land speed record-setting Blitzen Benz from two years previously, the S76 contained all of Fiat's technological know-how from its Grand Prix racing experiences of the early 1900s.  At the time, the only way to reliably extract a great deal of motive power from an engine was to make it as large as possible (hence the proliferation of monster-engined GP cars during that period, as well as the aforementioned use of aeroplane engines).  Thus it was that Fiat produced a gargantuan 28½-litre powerplant that put out nearly 300bhp - a fantastic figure for the time and almost twice as much as the Benz!  Featuring technology that would not look out of place in a modern engine, including four valves per cylinder and overhead cams with multi-spark ignition, the Fiat motor shared one thing in particular with its Mercedes counterpart - it was designed from the outset to power a motor car and a motor car alone; it never saw use as an aeroplane engine.

Only two examples of the S76 (fittingly named The Beast of Turin) were built, between Autumn 1910 and Spring 1911, and in the following two years they set numerous speed records around the globe, including runs of 125mph at the Brooklands circuit in Surrey and Saltburn beach in Yorkshire as well as a 180mph flying mile at Long Beach, New York!  It was in December 1913, however, that an attempt was first made on the World Land Speed Record that was held by a Blitzen Benz at 126mph.  French-American racing driver Arthur Duray, who had previously broken the land speed record three times between July 1903 and March 1904 (at 83mph, 85mph and 89mph), would be at the wheel for the record-breaking run at Ostend in Belgium.



Sadly, although the S76 used for the attempt was clocked at a magnificent 134mph a series of misfortunes ultimately denied the Fiat the record.  Inconsistent speed readings dogged the event (you can see from the accompanying footage just how rudimentary some of the measuring techniques were!) and the timings for each run, which have always been important for land speed records, were thrown into chaos by a recalcitrant tram driver who refused to alter his timetable along the seaside road being used for the attempt (yes, these chaps were really doing 130+mph next to tram tracks on a promenade road!).  Therefore the ultimate top speed remained unverified and the record unofficial; eight months later the First World War would sweep away all ideas of record attempts.  One of the S76 was sold to a Russian driver with the chassis later being used as a basis for a post-war racing car, the second was retained by Fiat and survived the war but never ran again under its own power.  The subsequent fate of it remains shrouded in the mists of time.

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Fast forward to a couple of years ago, when British vintage motor-racing enthusiast Duncan Pittaway managed to unearth the chassis of the record-attempting S76 - which had somehow ended up in Australia!  This was brought back to the UK and has since been reunited with the surviving engine from the other S76.  After a long period of restoration and rebuilding - with not a few little hiccoughs along the way - the sole remaining Fiat S76 is running again for the first time since 1913!  And what a sound!  It's remarkable to see it, in colour, in 2015 - to marvel at its massive engine, as tall as a man, the power and torque literally rocking the car on its springs.  What bravery Duray must have had to drive the thing at 135mph (he was actually quoted as saying that third gear "called upon all of his knowledge as a racing driver" and fourth [gear]  required "the courage of 100 men")!

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Mr Pittaway and his team are to be congratulated for such skill and devotion in bringing this monster back to life and I'm delighted to see it in such rude health after 100 years' sleep.  The Beast of Turin is scheduled to appear at this year's Goodwood Festival of Speed (25th-28th June 2015) and with luck many more events in the future, where it will doubtless thrill and deafen a whole new generation - I hope to be among them!

Space Zeppelins of the Future!

Nasa planning to build cloud cities in airships above Venus

For my first post of 2015 I thought that, in the spirit of all things new and exciting, I might look to the future for a change - albeit a future with a firm link to a technology of the past.

Airships have long been a favourite form of transport for this blogger, evoking as they do images of stately and luxurious air travel between the wars - of huge cigar-shaped behemoths, true liners of the air carrying well-heeled passengers across the Atlantic far quicker than any ship could hope to.  If ever there was a vessel to symbolise the peak of 1930s technological advancement, then the airship was it.  Then in May 1937 the Hindenberg exploded over Lakehurst, New Jersey.  Footage of the falling mass of flaming wreckage and the commentators anguished cries has passed into history but at the time was seen around the world by millions and the image of the airship was almost irrevocably tarnished.

sourceR.101 on its maiden flight over Bedford, October 1929

I say "almost" because, like any gas-filled envelope, you can't keep a good airship down(!).  For the last fifty-odd years, since the end of the Second World War, airships have slowly begun their comeback in a myriad of new roles - flying advertisements, mobile weather stations and tourist transport, to name but a few.  In recent years there has been much talk of using modern airship designs for heavy payload lifting or accessing inhospitable areas, at the fraction of the cost of fixed- or rotary-wing aircraft - some articles about which have appeared on this very blog.  Now in the last year have come two new, somewhat interlinked ideas for new airship uses - in space!

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Astronomy From High Altitude Airships

Back in early 2014 the University of California, at the behest of NASA and the Keck Institute for Space Studies, came up with a splendid-sounding idea for a future space telescope and potential Hubble replacement - a telescope mounted on a high-altitude airship!  Designed to fly in the thin air of the stratosphere (upper atmosphere, 60,000ft+), these "HAAs" would carry an ultraviolet telescope, similar in function to the one on Hubble and able to carry out much the same functions.  Of course, as this article makes clear, there are still several technical hurdles to overcome but so impressed have NASA and KISS been with this proposal that it is hoped they will run an open prize challenge for similar projects.  So with any luck we may see a few more high-altitude airship designs in 2015!

NASA Seeks Comments on Possible Airship Challenge

One such proposal - or rather a variation thereof - has just recently been announced by NASA (which bodes well for HAAs), who have had the wonderfully science-fiction/steampunk idea of exploring Venus using airships!  That's right - Space Zeppelins!

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As the fascinating article at the top of this post makes clear, the upper atmosphere of Venus is far more hospitable than the hellish surface (where the average temperature is over 400­­°C, pressure is 92 times that of Earth's and sunlight barely 10% and where it rains sulphuric acid).  At 30 miles or so up, however, it would be possible to travel above the sulphur clouds.  There would still be the ability to conduct many useful experiments - probes could be sent down, samples taken and, well, there's always just the wonder of human exploration.  Yes, these Venusian airships could easily be manned since the pressures and temperatures at such a height would be much more Earth-like.  In fact in the long term NASA may be considering so-called "cloud cities" - a collection of airships grouped together as a sort of floating base station.  What a hugely exciting prospect it all sounds!



Of course, airships as a means of exploration is nothing new.  Before their [relative] success in a commercial role airships were being touted as the future of air travel even over aeroplanes and both before and after the First World War several airships performed feats of great exploration, some unrivalled by other aircraft before or since.

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America moored at Spitsbergen, Norway, c.1906

The airship America made several attempts to reach the North Pole between 1906 and 1910, all unsuccessful but among the first to be tried in such an aircraft.  In late 1910 its pilots endeavoured to make the first transatlantic crossing by air, nine years before Alcock and Brown, but again without success (although they did travel a total of 1,370 miles, albeit south along the east coast of the USA!).  The centenary of that attempt has been the subject of an earlier blog post.

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Norge over Ny-Ålesund, Spitsbergen, Norway, 11 May 1926

It was the Italian-built airship Norge (above) that entered the history books as the first aircraft of any kind to fly over the North Pole on the 12th May 1926.  Constructed in 1923 for the famed Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen, the Norge left Rome in April 1926 and by way of Pulham in Norfolk, Norway, Russia and Spitsbergen succeeded in flying over the North Pole - marking the first time humans had travelled there - a month later.

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Italia, April 1928

Two years later the Norge's larger sister ship Italia made a couple of polar expeditions but on the third trip crashed badly during its return trip from the North Pole, killing eight of the sixteen crew and wrecking the airship in an incident that has never been satisfactorily explained.



By the end of the 1920s aeroplanes had advanced to the point where they were able to undertake individual exploration and record-breaking far more freely than airships.  Nevertheless the LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin, among others, continued to prove the worth of the airship as a long-distance aircraft in a series of flights including the famous round-the-world trip of 1929 (which was the subject of an interesting documentary a few years ago).  Two years later, in 1931, it too made a highly-publicised journey to the Arctic Circle culminating in a rendezvous with a Russian icebreaker.  Meteorological and magnetic field studies were undertaken successfully, hundreds of photos were taken and the Graf Zeppelin proved categorically that airships had a practical use in polar exploration.

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It has taken nearly 70 years, but I am pleased to see we are now once again waking up to those same practical uses for airships today - plus a couple of new ones! Another example of a past technology still having a useful application today - and what a thrilling example!  We may yet see a new heyday of lighter-than-air exploration - perhaps even taking us to other planets - and I for one can't wait to see what 2015 has in store for science and the airship.

Three cheers for the New Year!

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 To all my readers, followers and friends.

I wish you all a healthy, happy and successful

2015

and look forward to my sixth year of blogging 

here at Eclectic Ephemera.  

The spirit of Christmas present(s)

Well, I don't know about you but Christmas 2014 went past in something of a blur for me, albeit a very enjoyable blur at that.  Now here we are already but three days away from 2015.  I blame the weekend, personally...  Actually I feel the real reason in my case was a combination of putting up the Christmas tree a week late on the 20th due to a head cold the previous weekend and working up until the afternoon of Christmas Eve.

Anyway I ended up having a lovely Christmas Day at my sister's (she does read this, so hello Sis! if you are - thanks again for the dinner and pressies!) where I was able to play Monopoly with people who actually wanted to for the first time in years (discovering my 19-year-old niece has usurped me as the family Monopoly Champion), enjoy a delicious roast beef dinner and listen to my brother-in-law's Hoagy Carmichael collection.  Bliss!



But of course, you'll want to see what presents I received!  Let's have a look, shall we?

My parents have been in Pittsburgh, PA visiting my aunt & uncle since the beginning of the month and aren't back until after the New Year, so as an early Christmas present mater bought me this spiffing wool jacket when we were browsing in the local TK Maxx (some impressive bargains to be had in that store if one's willing to sort through a lot of stuff) a few months ago.  It's been worn often in that time (including on Christmas Day itself) and is fast becoming a staple of m'wardrobe.

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However one thing that has long been missing from the same is an overcoat of similar [earth] colours for days when I'm in a country mood and wearing greens and browns (currently I have a number of blue/black coats only - plus the heavyweight 1940s Kaufmann's full-length wool jobby from m'aunt, which is too good for day-to-day wear).  It looked like being a long and ultimately fruitless search for an inexpensive brown or green ¾- or full-length coat that wouldn't risk making one look like Arthur Daley/Inspector Clouseau/a flasher, until an old favourite online emporium - Samuel Windsor - came to the rescue with their Country Coats sale.  Now the splendid-looking Bedale Tweed coat is winging its way to me as I type.

Just prior to Christmas I'd also order some new woollen ties from the same source, with a view to further augmenting my autumn/winter wardrobe.  I already have a few secondhand [skinny] woollen ties, which have stood me in good stead over the years, but I fancied some more [wider] ones including one or two in blue - an underrepresented colour in my tie collection's palette.  SW were able to oblige with four in very pleasant colourways - including a Navy and, interestingly, "Air Force" blue.

The fourth tie - not pictured here because I'm currently wearing it - is called Corn, 
a nice green-gold that will go well with both greens and browns.

As I may have mentioned my new office has a very relaxed dress code; fortunately that includes a relaxed attitude to me flouting it (showing them the way, more like!).  I initially took the opportunity to break out my cravats but as winter began to bite I started missing my ties.  I've always felt that woollen and knitted ties are more informal, so now I'm glad to have a few more from which to choose during these colder months.

My first work Secret Santa was a jolly affair and proof that they've "got me pegged", as my manager put it, as I received this nice little lapel pin in the form of Morgan Motor Cars' crest.  Quite an early example, too, dating from the 1940s so I'm told (the "secret" part of Secret Santa falling by the wayside somewhat when we all had to guess "who got who" at the end of the proceedings!).

Finally, my sister came up trumps again with a copy of Cooking For Chaps, the new cookbook for chaps and "the man about town" by editor of The Chap magazine Gustav Temple and professional cook Clare Gabbett-Mulhallen, plus an apron and tea-towel set featuring a splendid quote from Roderick Field - "Tea is the finest solution to nearly every catastrophe and conundrum that the day may bring"!  Quite right too! 

That's it from me for now; I'm looking forward to seeing what other vintage bloggers were given by Father Christmas, and to the forthcoming new year.  Plus I hope to have a few more posts up before 2014 draws to a close, which - along with all those for 2015 - I can't wait to start writing.