gravel pits and cloud formations

Photos of clouds from the Allen Aerial Photograph Collection at the Ashmolean Museum:

Major George Allen (1891-1940) was one of the first people in Oxfordshire to own an aeroplane - a De Haviland Puss Moth, named 'Maid of the Mist'. He flew extensively across Southen Engand ... taking aerial photographs from 1933 until 1939.

Many of these photographs are of archaeological sites but he also took photographs of towns and cities, racing circuits, gravel pits and cloud formations.

There are more than 2000 images you can browse online.

All images © 2011 University of Oxford - Ashmolean Museum.

this weekend

Flying solo:

• reading
• toenails
• strawberry drinks
• the man who fell to earth

Happy weekend.

Photo: A seaplane taking off from an ocean liner, ca. 1930.

my soul is in the sky

1. Early airliner, ca. 1930

2. Gustave Le Gray (1820-1884): Seascape, study of clouds. Albumen print from a collodion glass negative, ca. 1857.

imaginary outfit: pilot

As always, you can click through the image for the sources of each item pictured.

womens' flying training detachment

Photos of the Women's Flying Training Detachment at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, TX, by Peter Stackpole for LIFE Magazine. July 1943.

ruth

Ruth Nichols, b. February 23, 1901:

Ruth Nichols holds more than 35 women's aviation records. In 1924 she was the first woman licensed to fly a hydroplane, and in 1927 she was one of the first two women licensed to fly transport planes. She set a transcontinental speed record in 1930, beating Charles Lindbergh's record set earlier that year. She was the only woman to hold simultaneously the women's world speed, altitude, and distance records for heavy landplanes. At the commencement of World War II, Ruth saw the need for "mercy flying" and founded Relief Wings, a humanitarian service to provide relief flights for both natural disasters and wartime support.

Photos: 1. Ruth Nichols in Curtiss Fledgling (Source: IWASM); 2. Nichols' 1929 National Air Race card and wallet; 3.; 4. Nichols' Crosley Radio Corporation Lockheed Vega, 1930; 5.

amy

Amy Johnson CBE, (1 July 1903 – 5 January 1941) was a pioneering English aviator. Flying solo or with her husband, Jim Mollison, Johnson set numerous long-distance records during the 1930s. Johnson flew in the Second World War as a part of the Air Transport Auxiliary where she died during a ferry flight.

She was the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia. Along the way, she battled sandstorms, desert dogs, monsoon rains, blistering heat, and crash landings. It's quite a story.

Photo sources: 1, 2 + 3; 4. With Jim Mollison on their wedding day, July 29, 1932; 5; 6; 7; 8. In Victoria, Australia, June 1930;  9. In Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, July 1930.

pancho

Flying makes me feel like a sex maniac in a whorehouse with a stack of $20 bills. 

Pancho Barnes

***

Florence Lowe "Pancho" Barnes (July 22, 1901 – March 30, 1975) was a pioneer aviator, the founder of the first test pilots' union and the owner of the Happy Bottom Riding Club, a bar and restaurant. She broke Amelia Earhart's air speed record in 1930.

1. George Hurrell: Photograph of Pancho Barnes, 1928; 2.; 3. Pancho Barnes poses with her Travelair Mystery Ship, circa 1930; 4. Ramon Novarro and Pancho Barnes; 5. 

bessie

Bessie Coleman, b. January 26, 1892: the first African-American to become a licensed pilot and the first American to obtain a pilot's license from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale.

When American flight schools rejected her because she was black and a woman, Coleman raised the money needed to study in France, where she learned to fly and earned her license. Back in the States, she became a celebrity and built a successful career as a barnstorming stunt pilot before her untimely death in 1926. Her influence lived on in Bessie Coleman Aero Clubs, which trained and inspired the next generation of African-American pilots.

More here + here.

Photos: 1, 2, 3, 4. pilot's license, 5, 6. 1921 editorial cartoon published in the Chicago Defender celebrating Bessie Coleman.

harriet

Harriet Quimby, b. May 1, 1875:

There is no reason why the aeroplane should not open up a fruitful occupation for women. I see no reason why they cannot realize handsome incomes by carrying passengers between adjacent towns, why they cannot derive incomes from parcel delivery, from taking photographs from above, or from conducting schools for flying. Any of these things it is now possible to do.

Quimby was the first woman in the United States to gain a pilot's license, and the first woman to make a nighttime flight and to fly across the English Channel. She also wrote screenplays for D.W. Griffith and designed her own purple satin flight suit. She was Amelia Earhart's personal hero.

Photo: Quimby in her Blériot monoplane, 1911.

'dad, I left my heart up there.'

Post title from Francis Gary Powers describing his first flight at age 14.

Photo: Vernacular Snapshots of Unknown Photographers: Selected works from the collection of Peter J. Cohen, upcoming at Morgan Lehman Gallery.

high sprits they had: gravity they flouted

1. Footage of the Wright Brothers demonstrating their flying machine in Le Mans, France, fall 1908.

2. Jacques Henri Lartigue: Merlimont Premier vol de Gabriel Voisin, sur le planeur Archdeacon, 1904.
3. Jacques Henri Lartigue: ZYX 24 takes off, Rouzat, 1911.
4. Jacques Henri Lartigue: Zissou dans le vent de l'helice de l'aeroplane Esnault-Pelterie (Zissou bent by the airplane's wind), 1911.
3. Vintage Branger Studio Photo, ca. 1909. Photographer stamp & text on reverse: Le Santos Dumont.
4. Henry Farman 'looping the loop', ca. 1913.
5. Vintage M. Rol photograph, ca. 1910. Titled on back : Paris Bruxelles Paris. 560 km. La foule se precipitant a l'atterissage de Wynmalen (sur biplan Farman).

Post title: Cecil Day Lewis.