Ilyushin DB-3

Ilyushin DB-3

The Ilyushin DB-3 is a WW2 Soviet long-range bomber aircraft. It first flew in 1935. 1,528 were built. 

From Wikipedia:

The DB-3 was not a simple or easy aircraft to manufacture as Ilyushin had pushed the limits of the available construction technology to make it as light as possible. For example, the spar in each wing panel had four parts which had to be riveted together and there were numerous welds that each had to be inspected by an X-ray machine, with many failures. In addition the internal riveting of small-diameter tubing was also a difficult and time-consuming process.

In 1939, 30 DB-3s were supplied to the Republic of China Air Force during the Second Sino-Japanese War and they saw heavy action against Japanese targets in the Wuhan region from their bases in Sichuan (mostly used by the 8th Group), before being replaced by B-24 Liberators in 1943.

Two DB-3s were responsible for shooting down the neutral Finnish civilian Junkers Ju 52 passenger and transport plane Kaleva on June 14, 1940.

The Finns captured five force-landed DB-3Ms during the Winter War and during 1941 they purchased a further six DB-3Ms and four DB-3F/Il-4s from German surplus stocks.

On the night of August 7–8, 1941, fifteen DB-3T torpedo bombers of the Baltic Fleet dropped the first Soviet bombs on Berlin. From August 11, DB-3Fs of the VVS resumed bombing.

DB-3 torpedo bombers attacking a naval convoy in the Baltic
Skyfire

Ilyushin DB-3 & DB-3F(IL-4). WWII
Yolkhere

Cooling Air Intake Restrictor

Finnish Air Force Swastika

The Finnish Swastika is not connected to the Nazis.

Etrich Taube Monoplane

Etrich Taube Monoplane -  Russell Smith

From Wikipedia:

First flight in 1910.

The Etrich Taube, also known by the names of the various later manufacturers who built versions of the type, such as the Rumpler Taube, was a pre-World War I monoplane aircraft. It was the first military aeroplane to be mass-produced in Germany.

The Taube was very popular prior to the First World War, and it was also used by the air forces of Italy and Austria-Hungary. Even the Royal Naval Air Service operated at least one Taube in 1912. On 1 November 1911, Giulio Gavotti, an Italian aviator, dropped the world's first aerial bomb from his Taube monoplane over the Ain Zara oasis in Libya. Once the war began, it quickly proved inadequate as a warplane and was soon replaced by other designs. 

Etrich Taube: The World’s First Plane to Launch an Aerial Bomb
Retro Transport

Handwriting

Key - Ernst Neizvestny - 1984

Meduza got me started with a story about a Russian soldier who was making bank by forging Ernst Neizvestny artworks so naturally I want to see what kind of art he makes. In general, his art seems to be ugly. Kind of a reflection of many aspects of modern life. Doesn't appeal to me.

So who is this Ernst Neizvestny? 

Ernst (1925 – 2016) was a Russian artist . . . He emigrated to the United States in 1976 and lived and worked in New York City.

American playwright Arthur Miller once described Neizvestny as an "artist of the East" who is regarded by Russians as an "expression of the country, of its soul, language, and spirit" and as a "prophet of the future" who represents the "philosophical conscience of his country." . . .

Ernst's great grandfather received his surname, literally meaning "unknown," when he was conscripted for military service as a cantonist.

A cantonist? Look that up in Wikipedia and found this:

Cantonists were underage sons of conscripts in the Russian Empire. From 1721 on they were educated in special "cantonist schools" for future military service . . . The Russian state viewed the cantonist system as an effective means to induce the assimilation of its ethnic minority populations, particularly Jews, who were markedly over-represented within the schools.

Huh, imagine that, assimilation of ethnic minorities was important even back in the 1700s.

Anyway, scrivenery was one of the skills taught in cantonist schools.

A scrivener is a professional copyist or scribe . . . Styles of handwriting used by scriveners included secretary hand, book hand and court hand.

Different styles of handwriting? Well, I'll be. Here we go:

"The secretarie Alphabete": an abecedarium showing the forms of the letters used in secretary hand, from a penmanship book by Jehan de Beau-Chesne and John Baildon, 1570.

Bookhand variations using a Brause 2.5mm nib and Moon Palace ink on Strathmore Drawing 300 paper.

An abecedarium of Court Hand, including minuscule and majuscule letters and syllable variations.

More Tehran

Iranians walk in front of a large anti-US billboard featuring US President Donald Trump and the Strait of Hormuz, at Valiasr Square in Tehran, Iran [File: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA]

Islamic Street Art

A woman in Tehran, Iran, walks past a mural featuring Iranian drones on May 26 [File: Majid Asgaripour/West Asia News Agency via Reuters]

I like this picture though I'm not sure why, possibly because we've been watching Tehran and I'm seeing everything through Trumpian glasses.

De Havilland Mosquito

Mosquito Pathfinders by Philip West

Military Gallery:

Groundcrew busy themselves readying their de Havilland Mosquito as the aircrew head out towards the aeroplane for yet another mission to a high value target over occupied Europe during WW2. Their dangerous job as Pathfinders is to accurately mark and bomb the target for the main heavy bomber force. It required great skill in navigation, airmanship and courage. The Mosquito proved to be a real thoroughbred and ideal for many varied combat sorties so earning the nick-name The Wooden Wonder. 

De Havilland Mosquito | In-Flight & Walk Around | Planes of Fame
Planes of Fame

Photo-shoot

Photo-shoot - painting by Graham Turner

From Studio 88:

A BE2e flies over the Western Front on a photo-reconnaissance mission, the pilot operating the lever that would change the glass negative plates in externally mounted C-type camera, while the observer struggles to aim his Lewis gun.

The BE2 was designed as a stable observation platform before the role of the aeroplane in warfare had been properly understood, so was originally completely unarmed. Various rather ‘Heath-Robinson’ gun-mounting brackets were adopted to try to remedy this, but the basic problem of the observer’s very restricted position among the struts and wires can clearly be seen. (Note the alternative gun mounting attached to one of the forward struts. Countless BE2 crews were shot down and killed whilst bravely flying over enemy lines to bring back vital photographs of troop movements, trenches, artillery positions, and other crucial information.

Spaceman

Spaceman

Saw Project Hail Mary for the second time yesterday afternoon, this time at the Fox Tower theater. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I missed (or forgot) from the first time. It's still great.

Immortal Regiment

Bas-relief plaque at the National WW2 Memorial in Washington D. C.
American and Russian armies meeting in Germany at the end of WW2

Several hundred people have taken part in an ‘Immortal Regiment’ march in Washington, commemorating those who fought for the Soviet Union in the Second World War . . . The marches are traditionally held on May 9 in Russia, when the country celebrates Victory Day. In Washington, however, it was staged on Saturday, a week before the 81st anniversary of the end of the bloodiest conflict in history.

Aerial view of the World War II Memorial with the Lincoln Memorial in the background

Knitting & Reading

Knitting via view from the porch

Fillyjonk likes to knit. Today she has a few words to say about reading for fun. I wouldn't be surprised if she knit the pigeon.

Gunday Monday

RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) by front door

Saw this image on Bustednuckles and I'm thinking this is serious home defense. And then I noticed the rug on the floor.

Afghan War Rug

Shin Meiwa US-1A

Shin Meiwa US-1A

Video of Japanese flying boat US2 here. Wikipedia page here.

Downtown

Matador Bar

Went downtown yesterday for a meeting. Meeting was on the umpteenth floor of a high rise. Walk in the front door, tell the man at the desk our names and he gets up and walks over to the elevators, unlocks the console and programs it for our floor. I've never run into this kind of security before. On the upside I successfully navigated our way back to our car that we had parked in the Fox Tower parking garage.
Go in the wrong door of the building and take the wrong elevator and you can end up hiking for hours trying to find your car.

Matador Wallpaper

After the meeting we went to the Matador restaurant for lunch where I saw the most impressive bar (top) and the scary wallpaper in the bathroom (bottom).

Koen Dickmans

Koen Dickmans

This is such an absurd image I fully expected the artist to be some famous advant garde jerk, but the most Google could find was that he has a bunch of pictures on Jigsaw Planet. So I guess he's just a regular grade goofball.

Bear Fight

The Battle of the Twin Bears - Vadim Gorbatov

Artist's website.

Via daily timewaster

Mont Saint Michael's Mount

Mont-Saint-Michel, France

I didn't realize until I tried looking up the English one this evening that there are two of these things just 200 miles apart.

St Michael's Mount, England

Wikipedia

St Michael's Mount, England, left &
Mont-Saint-Michel, France, bottom center

Silver statue of Saint Michael the Archangel slaying a dragon in abbey Mont Saint Michel

And here I thought St. George was the dragon slayer.

Mont-Saint-Michel has appeared here before.

Bistro Alder

Bistro Alder Ceiling

Had dinner with wife and older son at Bistro Alder yesterday evening. We lucked out when we got a table because they were pretty much fully booked.

The ceiling in this place is nuts. Somebody went to a great deal of trouble to create this.

Detail

Zodiac Girl

Virgo

Very cool picture. Did not find out much about it. Google says it is "in the style of Gustav Klimt".

Glacier Pilot Notes

Six years ago I was reading Glacier Pilot by Beth Day, a story about Bob Reeve, one of the pioneers of aviation in Alaska. Now I'm trying to clean out some old drafts, so here are some items that caught my eye.

Alaska
p. 25 Nunatak - A nunatak is the summit or ridge of a mountain that protrudes from an ice field or glacier that otherwise covers most of the mountain or ridge.
p. 26 Williwaw - a sudden violent squall blowing offshore from a mountainous coast.

Aviation pioneers, page 28:

• Lindbergh
• Doolittle
• Twining
• Curt Le May

Before Bob went to Alaska, he spent some time in South America. Pan American Grace airlines, aka PANAGRA, used several different airplanes when they started email service to Santiago Chile (page 38).

Loening Amphibian

Fairchild FC-2 flying over the Andes mountains

Ford Trimotor refueling in Guatemala 1933

Sikorsky S-38

The Sikorsky S-38 made an appearance in the movie The Aviator:


The Aviator (2004) - Howard and Kath Flying Scene (Spanish Subtitles)

New-to-me terms:
p. 38 sin publicadad - Spanish for 'without advertising'.
p. 41 Hegira - the journey the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his followers took from Mecca to Medina.
p. 43 gambling - "Ship, Captain, and Crew" is a dice game where players bet tokens (like "gold booty") and try to roll a 6 (Ship), 5 (Captain), and 4 (Crew) in that order, within three rolls, setting them aside to collect the score from the remaining two dice (Cargo) for the highest score to win the pot. It's a push-your-luck game that can be played for ante to a pot, with the winner taking all the tokens. 

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry makes an appearance on page 41.

Flying between Santiago Chile and Buenos Aires Argentina means flying over the Andes mountains, and since aircraft weren't pressurized, you needed to find a pass. Uspallata Pass with statue of Christ was one.

1911 Uspallata Pass

Wikipedia article. Google 3D map.

Christ the Redeemer of the Andes

The statue of Christ the Redeemer is the hiding place for the red suitcase in Kleo.

City Life

City Life

Taken from stickers, though the sticker vendors don't tell you how big the stickers are. This puzzle took me a long time, three or four hours maybe over the course of a day. I was able to piece together several subassemblies, but they only covered maybe a third of the area. For the rest of it I resorted to just trying pieces. Very tedious.