Monday, February 21, 2005

Fantasy Planes

I found this site today: Fantasy Planes - filled with great images of flying-craft that never were. I've always been fascinated by man's attempts at flight, especially those Victorian and early 20th Century contraptions that imagined the future. I have to agree with the site's owner that:
"...the most interesting airplanes are the ones that never got built."

Take for instance the Bel Geddes Airliner #4 - first proposed in 1929 Airliner #4 had a crew of 155, and sleeping berths for 606 passengers! Its wingspan was a massive 528 feet, 2 and a half times the width of a Boeing 747. Transatlantic plane flights would have taken 72 hours and been as cofortable as a cruise ship, which took a week for the same journey.

The Burnelli UB-14 [pictured] was designed for Clyde Pangborn to "race, nonstop around the world", refueling in the air "and without touching foreign soil, arrive back at his starting point and drop his wheels on the same American runway from which he takes off."

But my favourites have to be those of comic-book artist Harry Grant Dart. In the early 1900s he was imagining amazing air-battles that prefigured (and eclipsed) those later to be seen in World War I. Images such as Going Into Action [Harpers Weekly, 1907], and The Vampires [Harpers Weekly, 1910] depict vast flotilla of air and sea-craft battling it out in what looks almost like a modern Space Opera War between battlecruisers.

Very inspiring stuff for my writing at the moment :-)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Past partner used to wax whimsical about a large illustration from the Victorian era of a city (London, at a guess) fitted out in futuristic garb. There were plentiful steel and glass architecture and hitching posts for the many airships. I don't know the name of the artist but if you could track that down I'm sure you'll find plenty of brain candy.

Mind you, the Harry Grant Dart illustration "What's to Hinder?" is thematically very close, so perhaps there's a clue . . .