Just time for our occasional series: "Ladies in Bikinis Holding Model Aircraft!"
I will be testing you on the aircraft...
Who filed the first patent for a 'flying machine with a boat hull'?
- Alphonse Pénaud
- Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin
- Orville Wright
When built the first single engine monocoque aircraft?
- Dornier-Zeppelin
- Oswald Short
- LFG Roland
You buy a model aircraft whose controls use the 72 MHz frequency band. Which country are you NOT permitted to legally fly it in?
- Canada
- Singapore
- the Vatican city state
Which of these light jets is the fastest?
- the Cirrus Vision SF50
- the Dassault Falcon 10
- the Bombardier Learjet 25D
Which of these nations did not purchase the F4 Phantom?
- Spain
- Turkey
- Japan
Which of the following is NOT used to control a multi-pitch RC helicopter?
- the cyclic
- the collective
- the throttle
Which aircraft is depicted below?
- a Martin AM Mauler
- a Douglas A-1 Skyraider
- an NAA T28 Trojan
Well how did you do? I'm not going to tell you because I don't believe you were looking at the aircraft, but if you think you did well then well done!
More ladies in bikinis holding model aircraft another time...
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Today I'm looking at a few books from New York publishing house Grosset & Dunlap...
London After Midnight, by Marie Coolidge-Rask. Grosset & Dunlap, 1928.
This is a movie tie-in version, although the last known copy of the film was destroyed in 1965 at a fire at MGM's vaults. It's one of the most sought-after lost silent films now.
A Thousand Years A Minute, by Carl H Claudy. Grosset and Dunlap, 1939. Cover by A C Valentine.
Part of the Adventures in the Unknown series, this is a time travel novel sending its heroes back to the prehistoric world.
One of the best #Christmas presents you could ever get was a View-Master! It sold over one billion reels across the world, but it's based on Victorian technology. How did one simple gadget get to be so popular?
Let's take a look at the toy that took over the planet...
Stereographs are cards with two nearly identical photographs mounted side by side. Viewed through a binocular device they give an illusion of depth. By 1858 the London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company had published over 100,000 of them.
Sawyer's Photo Finishing Service began in 1919 in Portland, Oregon. By 1936 they had teamed up with William Gruber, who had been experimenting with stereoscope photography using the new Kodachrome colour film.
Today in pulp I look back at a few forgotten '80s sci-fi movies and ask: is it time to reappraise them?
Spoilers: not all of these are available on Betamax...
There were a huge number of mid and low budget sci-fi movies released throughout the '80s, many of which went straight to video. Today they lurk in the far corners of your streaming service.
Should you watch them? Well let me take you through a few you might be tempted by.
Battle Beyond The Stars (1980) was Roger Corman's retelling of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai in space. James Cameron did an impressive job on the SFX with a small budget and the film certainly has a distinctive look.
"A dream to some. A nightmare to others!" As it's Christmas let's look back at a film that I think helped redefine an old genre, captivated the imagination and launched many successful acting careers.
Let's look at John Boorman's Excalibur!
For a long time the film industry found the King Arthur story amusing. Camelot (1967) was a musical comedy; Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) was pure comedy.
But director John Boorman had been thinking seriously about the Arthurian legend since 1969, particularly Sir Thomas Malory's 1469 telling of the story 'Le Morte d’Arthur'. The mythic theme greatly appealed to him.
Today in pulp I'm looking back at some Michael Moorcock books, and having a think about the New Wave of science fiction that started in the 1960s...
In Britain the New Wave is often associated with New Worlds magazine, which Moorcock edited from 1964 to 1970. Financial troubles caused the magazine to close in 1970, but it made sporadic comebacks over the subsequent years.
However he started as editor of Tarzan Adventures in 1957, where he introduced Sojan the Swordsman - perhaps his first stab at creating an 'eternal champion' character
Today in pulp I'm looking back at one of the greatest albums of all time.
What are the chances...
By 1976 Jeff Wayne was already a successful composer and musician, as well as a producer for David Essex. His next plan was to compose a concept album.
War Of The Worlds was already a well known story, notorious due to the Orson Wells radio play production. For Wayne it seemed like a great choice for a rock opera.