Dragon Rapides and selfies

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A visit to the Imperial War Museum site at Duxford, Cambridgeshire, gave me the opportunity to photograph, once again, the De Havilland Dragon Rapide. The aircraft shown is one of two that gives pleasure flights from the airfield. I've always had a soft spot for the design of this aircraft. It manages to combine elegance with seeming fragility, yet still remains airworthy more than seventy years after its manufacture. In fact, this particular aircraft was built as a trainer for the RAF in whose service it was designated the DH89A Dominie. The military markings allude to its origins.

I took the photograph with a lens with a maximum zoom of 210mm (35mm equivalent) - too short for this kind of shot. However, the camera's 24 megapixel sensor can be cropped and still produce a very detailed image, hence the shot above. When I zoomed in on the computer I noticed that one of the passengers appeared to be taking a "selfie", with hand outstretched and cameraphone pointing at the owner. I've taken a few selfies in my time. However, they have been with dedicated cameras not phones and employed a tripod, self-timer or my portrait in a reflective surface. I have yet to photograph myself with outstretched arm clutching a phone because the resultant image is usually poor. Moreover, I have no sympathy with the motivation for such shots which appears to be egocentricity - "look where I was/what I was doing/who I was with". Almost all my photography involves looking away from myself saying "look at this".

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 140mm (210mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/800 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Boeing B17 Flying Fortress

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The only airworthy Boeing B17 Flying Fortress to be found in the United Kingdom is based at the Imperial War Museum (IWM) Duxford, Cambridgeshire. It isn't part of the museum collection but is owned by a charitable trust. Like quite a few aircraft of the second world war that are still flying it was constructed at the end of the conflict and didn't see active service. Until 1954 it was used for training and as a research aircraft at Wright Field and Hill AFB, then it was sold to France where it undertook civil work for the government, flying from Creil. In 1975 it was bought by a British businessman and brought to Duxford.

The aircraft was maintained and operated by enthusiasts and painted in the colours of the 457th Bomb Group, USAAF 8th Air Force that was based at RAF Glatton, Huntingdonshire (now Cambridgeshire). Since that time, despite funding crises, technical problems and the death of the guiding force behind the project, it has undertaken a regular programme of flying at air displays and commemorative events in the UK and across Europe. In 1989 the aircraft was one of five airworthy Flying Fortresses used in the film, "Memphis Belle", a William Wyler story about the first B17 to complete twenty five combat missions over enemy territory. The aircraft still carries on one side of its nose a painting of a woman and the words, "Memphis Belle". This a more modest illustration than the painting on the other side of the nose - "Sally B" - shown above.

We saw the aircraft being prepared for flight on the morning of our visit to Duxford and were fortunate to see it depart to perform at a display at Cosford later in the day. My photograph shows the aircraft taxiing on tarmac before it went on to the grass to take off.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 270mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Airfix and the Dragon Rapide

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Like many men who were little boys in the 1950s and 1960s I made my share of Airfix models, the plastic kits of aircraft, cars, ships and much else, that are assembled with polystyrene cement and then painted, usually with Humbrol enamel paint. The Supermarine Spitfire, Avro Lancaster, Hunting Jet Provost, Hawker Sea Hawk, Blackburn Buccaneer and many other Royal Air Force and Royal Navy aircraft were put together by my not-so-nimble fingers. I favoured the classic WW2 planes and the newer jet-age models but I also attempted a couple of pre-war aircraft and biplanes. I recall making the Tiger Moth (see yesterday's post) and the Fairey Swordfish, a torpedo carrying biplane that served with some distinction during the second world war. My model-making years were few, you soon grow out of these things as well as seeing the limits of the exercise, but I enjoyed it and learnt quite a bit.

One biplane that became available in Airfix that I quite liked was the De Havilland Dragon Rapide. I'd seen these aircraft flying about, and though they were old looking and old in years, first flying in 1934, I admired their elegant lines and curves. However, I never bought the kit. In later years I had a flight in one and I recall the steep slope of the cabin floor when the plane was at rest. The other day, at the Imperial War Museum airfield at Duxford we saw two giving pleasure flights and watched a third, pristine example of this aircraft, being towed out of a hangar and onto the runway. We all commented on the high quality of the paint job and speculated that it had just been finished - there was no insect spatter and no exhaust stains. Later we saw it take to the air and I got a couple of photographs.

Interestingly, when I came to look up some information about the Dragon Rapide I discovered that the Airfix model of this plane was based on the freshly painted one we'd seen. Perhaps that, alongside the perfect paintwork, accounts for the fact that in my main photograph the aeroplane looks like a model!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 70mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Tiger Moths, preservation and technology

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I get pleasure and interest from seeing old forms of transport still being used for their original purpose. There's a certain satisfaction that comes from knowing that something constructed decades ago still works. Perhaps that feeling comes partly from the fact that many of the vehicles that we buy, use and discard today are so obviously manufactured for a limited life and in a way that precludes them working fifty or more years down the line. Modern computerised engine management systems, LCD displays etc with their purpose-made chips linked to software that will soon be obsolete mean that today's cars will be difficult for enthusiasts to run in the future. The sophisticated metals that aircraft manufacturers began using in the 1950s and 1960s are limiting the flying time of preserved aircraft such as the Avro Vulcan; the sole airworthy example's engines' flying hours have almost expired. Heaven knows how the aviation preservation enthusiasts of the year 2100 will keep today's aircraft with their head-up displays, circuit boards and the rest of their technological gizmos in the air.

The problems that face someone today who aims to keep an aircraft from the 1930s flying are of a lesser order. The technology involved in most aircraft of this era is much more basic, and components can be relatively easily manufactured if they can't be sourced from elsewhere. I was discussing this with one of my sons the other day as we watched  an assortment of old aircraft - Tiger Moths, Dragon Rapides, a Harvard, a Chipmunk, a Boeing B17 bomber and others - taking off and landing at the Imperial War Museum site at Duxford, Cambridgeshire. Today's photograph shows one of the Tiger Moths, an aircraft first manufactured in 1932. This example was built during WW2 as a training aircraft and after a long career in aerobatics, private ownership and storage is now used for pleasure flying.

I'm no specialist aircraft photographer: I have neither the lenses nor the inclination to pursue planes to the exclusion of much else. However, I'm not averse to pointing my camera at them when they come my way. I took a few shots of this particular Tiger Moth on the ground and several more when it was aloft. The main photograph is the one I liked best of the latter group. The aircraft's smallness against the dark, heavy cloud cover appealed to me more than shots where it better filled the frame.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 300mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Form, function and the SR-71

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"Modern machines are built on purely functional lines, with the purpose of achieving a given performance with the most economical - which means the most perfect - means. The more consciously and methodically this aim is pursued, the more practically and functionally the construction of the machine will be conceived and the more satisfying will be its aesthetic effect - and no wonder, for the more clearly will the beholder appreciate the intentions of those who conceived and created the machine."
from Kurt Ewald, "The Beauty of Machines" (1925-6) translated and quoted in "Form and Function: A Source Book for the History of Architecture and Design 1890-1939"

Walking round the American Air Museum at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford, I started to photograph the stiletto form of the Lockheed SR-71 "Blackbird". This strategic reconnaissance aircraft was designed in the early 1960s and saw service from 1966 until 1998. Its purpose was to fly very high and very fast to secure photographs and other data about actual and potential enemies. The SR-71 still holds a number of speed records including the "recognised course record", New York to London time of 1 hour 54 minutes and 56.4 seconds. The average speed here (including slowing for re-fuelling) was Mach 2.68 (2,040 mph) and the maximum speed is likely to have been in the region of Mach 3.2 (2,435mph). Speed by itself is not enough for a strategic reconnaissance aircraft; stealth is also a required attribute, so the design of the SR-71 features early ventures into that area of aircraft design and construction, the need to avoid being recognised by radar partly contributing to its unusual curved shape and, particularly, the "chines" that give it the flattened elliptical appearance from the front.

During my photography, and in discussion with my companions, I reflected on how the shape of the aircraft looks like a logical consequence of the design brief and the technology available to the engineers of the time: an example of, to use the short-hand phrase, "form following function". And that mis-quotation of the architect, Louis Sullivan, triggered a memory of a similar observation that I read many years ago from the 1920s, a period when architects and designers, especially those associated with the Bauhaus in Germany, were much absorbed with the link between the form of objects and their function. With a bit of digging in my library I found it (quoted above).

The interesting and strong silhouette of the aircraft, something that I wanted to stress in my photograph, wasn't shown to its best in the colour version of this shot. The floor, airfield grass and sky detracted from these qualities. Consequently I converted it to a black and white image which I think works better.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length:36mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/10
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Secrets, lies and Lancasters

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Scanning the very truncated TV listing for today in my newspaper, more in hope than expectation I have to say, I was struck by the titles of three documentary programmes. The first was called "The Secret History Of Our Streets" (about things on, above and below streets), the second, "The Secret Life Of Ice" (about glaciation), and the third, "The Secrets of Scott's Hut" (about the explorer's wooden hut in Antarctica). All of them purport to be "revealing" secrets to the viewer. Except of course they're not, and they know it. The word "secret" in the context of TV and book titles has been flogged to death in recent years. It is used as bait to subliminally suggest that the offering is in some way divulging that which has been hidden, or is new, or to imply that this is not yet another re-hash of a familiar subject. Except of course it invariably is. I think I'll be reading my book again tonight.

A UK TV channel called Yesterday is the biggest culprit as far as overworking the tired concept of TV programmes that reveal secrets. It manages to broadcast multiple series about the Second World War that show the same film footage, the same narratives, the same topics, all re-worked from an angle, the most common of which is the revelation of that which has hitherto been "secret". What it hasn't yet come up with, as far as I know, is "The Secret of the Avro Lancaster" or The Secret of the Supermarine Spitfire". It can only be a matter of time.

I recently visited the aircraft collection of the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, Cambridgeshire. I've photographed there before and never found it especially easy to come away with a shot that I liked. This time, however, despite the fact that I was with several members of my family, I got a few. Today's shows Britain's main heavy bomber of the Second World War, the Avro Lancaster, revealed for all to see - no secrets whatsoever. It took quite a bit of post processing to tease this shot out of a fairly contrasty original, and it's probably technically my best effort at this venue. Incidentally, as a contrast with my complaint above, I quite like the way that this museum has retained the original name of the founding Imperial War Museum in London. When it was founded there was no disingenuous attempt to call it an Air Museum, a Defence Museum, or to toy with any other verbal equivocation. It contains mainly military aircraft and their weapons and the name recognises these have been and are weapons of war.

photograph and text © T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length:17mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/15
ISO: 1000
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The "Counting the Cost" Memorial

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I recently attended a talk on "remembrance" that included the subject of war memorials. These tributes to the fallen can be seen all over the country in villages, towns and cities. Most of them date from around 1920 and list the local men (and women) who died in the First World War. Invariably they were added to after the Second World War, and some have names from later conflicts. A few memorials - such as the The Cenotaph in Whitehall, London - commemorate no individual, but rather seek to remember all those who died. And then there are others that are very specific, honouring women, or particular branches of the armed forces.

On my recent visit to the Imperial War Museum aviation museums at Duxford I photographed a memorial to United States airmen who flew from Britain during World War Two. It is a very effective and moving design that departs radically from the usual stone and sculpture of earlier memorials. The designer was Renato Niemis, and his bold idea was to use 52 toughened clear float glass panels each of which is etched with a repesentation of an aircraft that was lost. The panels line the path that leads to the American Air Museum, and as you walk alongside it, passing the packed ranks of B-17s, Liberators, Mustangs etc you become aware of just how many aircraft were shot down. Moreover, as you imagine each bomber with its full complement of crewmen - 10 in the case of the B-17 - you start to grasp the human cost of the bombing campaign in terms the aircrew who never returned. In fact, 7,031 aircraft are depicted, and it is a salutary experience to see this before you enter the museum and see examples of some of the aircraft shown on the memorial.

The light was very changeable, and somewhat dull when I tried to photograph the "Counting the Cost" memorial. The best shot I got was the detail against the clouds and blue of the sky. I include the second photograph not for any special photographic qualities, but to give a better idea of how the aircraft are packed onto each panel.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

First photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 67mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

American Air Museum, IWM Duxford

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Yesterday I made my second visit to the Imperial War Museum (IWM) air museum at Duxford in Cambridgeshire. You don't have to be interested in historic aircraft to enjoy a day out there, but it does help. The site is a former RAF airfield that was used by the United States in World War 2. Consequently it's very appropriate that the two main exhibition buildings - both of them new, purpose-built structures - are dedicated to British and Commonwealth aircraft, and to United States aircraft.

The "Airspace" houses a wide range of British-built aeroplanes including a Concorde, Avro Vulcan, Avro Lancaster, TSR2, Tornado, Harrier, de Havilland Mosquito, English Electric Lightning and Canberra and a host of others, currently totalling more than 30 machines. The building itself is enormous and has a gallery, exhibitions, small rooms, and an adjoining hangar/work bay that on the day of our visit held a Shackleton, Victor and Typhoon, all looking like they were being prepared for exhibition. The American Air Museum is smaller, with a centrepiece of a B-52 that is surrounded by 19 other aircraft including the SR-71 Blackbird, a B-17, Phantom, F-100, F-111, Huey helicopter, Liberator and many other machines of the twentieth century. On display outside is an F-15.

Of the two buildings you'd have to say that the Airspace is big, capacious and functional, while the American Air Museum is smaller and a much more attractive and interesting structure. It is the design of Sir Norman Foster and was constructed by Arup. The principal components are a curved, 6000 ton concrete roof made of 924 sections and a removable glass wall that overlooks the airfield. The visitor enters at high level and descends to the aircraft on the main floor by curved ramps to left and right. Alhough the design brief sought a neutral backdrop against which to display the aircraft, to anyone interested in architecture, the structure grabs you the moment you walk in, and is in no sense "neutral". My photograph is taken with the Canon EF 24-105mm f4 L IS UM from towards the top of one of the ramps and gives a flavour of the elegant curves of the building as well an indication of how the exhibits are arranged.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The V bombers

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Anyone who grew up in the UK in the 1950s and 1960s will remember the "V" bombers. Until the arrival of the nuclear submarine fleet with their multiple-warhead ballistic missiles, these aircraft formed the sharp end of the country's nuclear deterrent. Other aircraft were tasked with carrying free-fall nuclear bombs, and artillery could fire low-yield nuclear shells, but projecting the country's main nuclear weapons rested with the three long-range strategic bombers, each of whose names began with the letter "V".

The Vickers Valiant was the first and least successful of the trio, though 107 aircraft were built between 1951 and 1957. Its fuselage suffered premature airframe fatigue when low-level flying became the RAF's strategy, and it was phased out in 1964. The other two bombers performed rather better. The Avro Vulcan, an elegant delta winged aircraft went into service in 1953. A total of 134 served with the RAF performing high and low level flying as required. The last operational flight was in 1984. Two years earlier, during the Falklands War, a Vulcan, receiving multiple re-fuelling, had flown a non-stop round trip from Britain to Port Stanley and back, in order to bomb the Argentine-held runway. In the past couple of years a Vulcan (XH558) has been restored to flying condition and has toured air shows, its original terrifying purpose forgotten, its unique shape and impressive presence widely admired.

The third of the "V" bombers was the Handley Page Victor (shown above) of which 86 were built. It first flew in 1956 and on its test flight accidentally broke the speed of sound. Like the Vulcan it was an elegant aircraft that had a long life, ending its service in 1993 after being an in-flight refuelling tanker for a number of years. The Victor shown above is undergoing restoration at the Imperial War Museum (IWM), at Duxford, Cambridgeshire. Alongside it are one of the the early Typhoons and a Spitfire. The large hangar they are in is part of a new building called "Airspace" that houses a fine display of ex-RAF aircraft. It's good to see that this big venerable aircraft is to take its place alongside the Vulcan there. I took this photograph on a recent visit, impressed by the size of the repair bay that dwarfed the big aircraft, the pattern of the lights, and the sense of scale that the two visitors gave to the scene.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (28mm/44mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/20 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On