Terrific variety of aircraft posters at Moment d'Inspiration Blogspot

Just a couple I liked the most from a big gallery at http://momentdinspiration.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/vielles-affiches-daeroplanes-ii.html

above from a seperate post at http://momentdinspiration.blogspot.com.au/2011/06/airplanes-cutaways-iii.html

the next Planes movie by Disney/Pixar is already in production, it will be about Fire and Rescue planes

Indiana Jones - Raiders of the Lost Ark has some great planes and cars

from the escape from the south american natives to the clipper ship sea plane

for a gallery of the Honolulu Clipper: http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2012/04/hawaii-clipper-1930s-photos-from-wj-he.html

to the stylish cars, and then there are all the military trucks, planes, and cars... it's a WW2 vintage car bonanza to watch this movie... especially for the flying wing that was destroyed after the boxing scene http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2011/07/i-just-watched-raiders-of-lost-ark-and.html

the truth is often stranger than fiction, and forgotten in months after its out of the news.. here is something I've never learned of or heard of, the airmail transcontinental route markers

A couple months ago I learned about the elevated bicycling wood road from Pasadena to Los Angeles, http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2013/07/forgotten-history-of-what-might-have.html and today Randy sent me an email about these large concrete markers that the airmail pilots used to stay on course from New York to San Fransisco, before electronic stuff like radar and radio direction finding, when all a pilot had was a compass and a map... and those weren't so great to use while airborne.

So these concrete arrows were made, painted yellow for daylight visibility, and lit with enormous light towers at night

the two maps below indicate the airfields used for refueling and food stops, not the arrows.

sources of these images and more info: http://introductiontoflying.blogspot.com/2011/08/transcontinental-air-mail-route.html
and Conde Nast Traveler http://www.cntraveler.com/daily-traveler/2013/06/transcontinental-air-mail-route-maphead-ken-jennings

American Airlines has made a very catchy new commercial with the help from Pixar

Glacier Girl, a P-38 of the "Lost Squadron" found 200 plus feet below the ice in Greenland

the Lost Squadron - two World War II Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers and six Lockheed P-38 Lightnings.

The squadron was forced to land on the Greenland ice cap on July 15, 1942 after hours of flying in bad weather and running low on fuel. Epps' adventure began as a lark when he was admiring a customer's new Learjet and the customer responded, "What I really want is a P-38". Epps certainly knew where six P-38 Lightnings were located so he joined forces with a friend and two airline pilots who already had the search and salvage rights from the Danish government.

http://www.eppsaviation.com/about-us_the-lost-squadron.php

The following story, originally published in the January 1993 issue of Air & Space/ Smithsonian,recounts adventures during the second leg of the journey, a 22-year slog through recovery and restoration that couldn’t have been completed without the ingenuity, stamina, and fortune of a Roy Shoffner, a Kentucky businessman, named the P-38 “Glacier Girl” and began to plan the completion of its mission.
http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/FEATURE-glaciergirl-backstory.html#

Fifty years later, in 1992, the plane was brought to the surface by members of the Greenland Expedition Society after years of searching and excavation. The aircraft was eventually transported to Middlesboro, Kentucky, where it was restored to flying condition. The excavation of Glacier Girl was documented in an episode of The History Channel's "Mega Movers" series, titled "Extreme Aircraft Recovery".

On 22 June 2007 Glacier Girl departed Teterboro Airport, New Jersey in an attempt to fly across the Atlantic Ocean to Duxford, England to complete the flight it had begun sixty-five years earlier. On 28 June, however, a coolant leak in the #2 (right) engine grounded the plane in Goose Bay, Labrador.

On July 22 2007 repairs were completed in Labrador, which included installation of two re-manufactured Allison engines. Glacier Girl returned to the U.S. on July 23, and can now be seen at air shows in the USA.

In 2007 Glacier Girl was sold to Lewis Energy's CEO, Rodney Lewis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacier_Girl

the cargo version of the B-29, the C-97

Diego and the Steam Pirates, the Collide Escape world of Armand Baltazar

the book is going to be printed and for sale before Christmas
http://www.armandbaltazar.com/collidescape/

Diego and the Steam-Pirates is an adventure story taking place after earth has been extraordinarily changed by a time fragmentation and collision: layers of time from prehistory to the near-distant future have been mashed together.

This is a world where dinosaurs have reappeared, where people and places all throughout earth’s history exist simultaneously, where pirate raiders, mysterious sea captains and their robots roam the vast inland seas in steam-driven ships.

 Master artist and storyteller Armand Baltazar takes you on an epic voyage to another world, mysteriously similar to our own.

It's made from a 1953 Fordson Golden Jubilee tractor

It's a Bentley Blower!

important note, in the above and below images steam locomotives are powering tugboats and buildings... the basic premise of the storyline is that nothing more complex than steam powered generators are operating.

Nothing with circuit cards, transistors, vacuum tubes, etc... just knife switches, Tesla era generators, etc. So with no city power grid, diesel turbos, and the rest of the modern tech, people had to adapt old power methods to keep cities going.

 So, steam power..., and the most common steam powered generators are old locomotives

http://www.armandbaltazar.com/collidescape/

 Just a moment to appreciate the incredible talented artist that created this, Armand is the incredible artist that has been the senior design concept genius behind Cars 2 with Pixar, but also worked at Disney Feature Animation, and his credits include the scenes of The Prince of Egypt, The Road to Eldorado, Spirit Stallion of the Cimmaron, Sinbad, Shark Tale, Flushed Away, The Bee Movie, Princess and the Frog, and A Christmas Carol http://www.armandbaltazar.com/animation.htm

 Armand is another of the incredible Art Center College of Design graduates that I frequently celebrate here on this blog

great imagery of traveling in this luggage advertisement

I can't recall where I found this

color film of a B-29 flight with P 51 escorts on a run to bomb Japan

thanks Mike!

Three museums at the Gillespie Field in El Cahon, one owns Steve McQueen's Stearman

http://www.gillespiefield.com/museums/

the Allen Airways bought the Stearman at the auction of Steve McQueen's estate...

but while looking at the websites of the others, I discovered that the San Diego Air And Space Museum was gifted the only wind tunnel in San Diego, In March 2006, the Museum acquired the former General Dynamics Low Speed Wind Tunnel (LSWT) at San Diego's Interantional Airport (Lindbergh Field).

The facility is now know as the San Diego Air & Space Technology Center Wind Tunnel, creating another first in the Museum's unique history.

The LSWT, originally began operations under the direction of Consolidated Vultee (Convair) in May 1947. General Dynamics assumed operations in 1961 when the company acquired Convair. General Dynamics' Convair Division (and later Lockheed) operated the facility until a private company took over in 1994. The LSWT remains the only privately held low-speed aeronautical wind tunnel in the United States. (notice the dates, that company held it for only 12 years)

To date, the LSWT has been used extensively in numerous military and civil aerospace development programs, including the F-106, B-58, F-111, F-16, Global Hawk UAV, Tomahawk Cruise Missile, and Advanced Cruise Missile. It has recently served the testing needs of Cessna, Boeing, Gulfstream, Northrop Grumman, General Atomics, Raytheon, and Lockheed Martin.

 As the only wind tunnel in the nation capable of performing low-speed flutter testing, Boeing has used the facility extensively to test all its commercial airliners, from the 707 to the new 787 Dreamliner. The facility has also provided testing for nearly 250 professional and amateur bicyclists including Lance Armstrong and the Discovery Cycling Team. In addition, every member of the 2006 US Olympic Luge Team was tested in the wind tunnel. 

Greg Jones takes astonishingly vivid and crisp HDR photos of cars and aircraft, from WW2 bombers to space shuttles, here is a sample

as the last image tells you, making just one image in HDR is the result of using multiple bracketed shots processed in Lightroom, Photomatix, Photoshop, Noiseware and Topaz Adjust in various proportions.

for more, and each is accompanied by a write up of it's location and history: http://www.bigpixelpushing.com/journal