THE HISTORY OF AVIATION CARDS

The History Of Aviation, a set of 50 Brooke Bond cards that came out in 1972.

Fellow blogger, Wotan knowing my fondness for aircraft gave me a set of these cards when we met up at the Dinky fair the other week.

The cards are illustrated by Roy Cross and written by Michael Wilson.

Although the cards begin with the Montgolfier Balloon, the first time an aerial voyage was accomplished, my interest in flight is down to jets!

This is the Gloster-Whittle E.28/39 - Britain’s first jet propelled aeroplane which made it’s initial flight on May 15, 1941.  I recall seeing the prototype tucked away in the London  Science Museum, and watching the Gloster Meteor , the jet that was developed from it at the Southport air show.

Another plane which can also be seen at the Science Museum is the Short S.C. 1, the first true vertical take-off and landing fixed wing aircraft to fly in Britain way back in 1957.

The Hawker-Siddeley Harrier, or Jump - Jet is the culmination of  V.T.O.L. development.

The Avro Vulcan, one of the R.A.F.’s V- bombers. An iconic delta winged aircraft.

General Dynamics F-111, first operational aircraft to employ a variable- geometry wing, better known as swing wing. This plane was in- part involved in the demise of the technologically advanced and controversial  TSR-2 aircraft which to some degree was eventually developed into the BAC Jaguar.

The de Havilland Comet 1, the world’s first jet-propelled airliner, having it’s first passenger flight for B.O.A.C. on May 2 1952.

The supersonic BAC Concorde, the fastest and, when it came into service in 1976 one of the most advanced airliners flying in the Western World.

From supersonic to hyper-sonic, and aircraft that skirt the edge of space and beyond.

The X-15, capable of speeds of up to Mach 6.72 or 4,534 mph!

And finally the Northrop HL-10, one of a class of experimental aircraft, known as lifting bodies because they have no orthodox wings. These space shuttles have blunt shapes to reduce the severe heating which takes place during re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere at 18,000 mph.