A bit of aviation humor

(based on Hergé’s wonderful art)

I know, it’s probably a Percival Prentice, not a Chipmunk. Got confused because Hergé usually took some liberty with aircrafts in his comics, but there’s also definitely a “Chippie” in the “Black Island“. Red/white with a bubble canopy.

Anyway, you get it. A proper Chipmunk should run a DH Gipsy engine. And the guy who writes this cannot currently fly his plane because of Gipsy cylinder issues. Go figure…

Flight line walk, a short story

Last weekend, the airshow celebrating the Battle of Britain took place in Duxford. Long before the crews started the engines of their Messerschmitt, Hurricane, Lysander and other wonderful, 80 years-old flying machines, the show started on the ground, for those who had access to the flight line. A crowd of volunteers participated in giving a unique, 1940 atmosphere.


“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

Winston Churchill

Traveling to Duxford is like playing with a time machine. Remembering that, as Churchill once said, “never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

Duxford Airshow 2019

Testing the iPhone XR sensor.

Challenging light here but the new iPhone XR performs very well. It still managed to capture details in the shadows while not burning the bright sky.

See below for a before and after: the untouched picture and, once clicked, a version edited with Snapseed posted on Instagram (which might be slightly over-processed, I confess, but it shows the level of details preserved).

By the way, this is the beautiful AMPA Morane Saulnier MS317 (1937) based at Lausanne Airport, Switzerland.

MS 317
Morane Saulnier MS 317 (1937)

The “Royal” DHC-1 Chipmunk

Nice video from the British Pathé archives: nineteen year-old Prince Charles in flightsuit taking flying lessons in Royal Air Force DHC-1 Chipmunk, from RAF base Tangmere. Watch here.

(I have had the chance to see (and fly in formation with) this very same DHC-1 Chippie during the 2017 Bull Chip Meet in Abbeville, France.)