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Issue 80 March 2014
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Editorial
Front cover this issue is Peter Nield’s“Yak 9 and Bf.109G”
A rather strange issue covering as it does the December meeting. Last year seems along time ago even though this is written early February to meet our printer’s deadline. Our featured artist is Peter Nield. Peter is contribution editor and does a great job providing articles and images. Due to other commitments it was the beginning of February when we realised we had no featured artist. To my delight Peter volunteered (he is usually too modest) and provided a great feature. Steve Kerry also surprised me by sending an article based on the book I was reading. We both were looking ahead to October and looking at WW1 aviation other than the Western Front. It is so full of relatively untapped incidents - well worth a look if you have D-Day organised.
Happy and successful painting.
Dave Rear Cover Image Is Peter’s “Glider over Mountains”
If any member has an objection to the Society holding Membership records on a computer and using the information for society purposes deemed suitable by the Committee, eg; the production and distribution of a membership list, please notify the Editor
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Contents Lighter Than Air with Rob Knotts
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Roger Markman on Colour and Light
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The MAvAS Trophy
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Featuring Peter Nield
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December Meeting
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January Meeting
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Steve Kelly reveals some Hun Chivalry
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Ossie’s Acrylic Painting Demonstration
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Newsround
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Diary Dates - keep up to date
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Lighter than Air Art By Rob Knotts - part 3 Airships, or dirigibles, were developed from the free balloon. Three classes of airships are recognized: the non-rigid, commonly called blimp, in which the form of the bag is maintained by pressure of the gas; the semi-rigid airship, in which to maintain the form, gas pressure acts in conjunction with a longitudinal keel; and the rigid airship, or zeppelin, in which the form is determined by a rigid structure. Technically all three classes may be called dirigible (Latin dirigere, "to direct, to steer") balloons or airships.
Airship Types Inflatable envelope Inflatable envelope
Non-Rigid Airship
Rigid Keel
Inflatable Gas Bags
Rigid Airship
Semi-Rigid Airship
Rigid Envelope
Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin was the inventor of the rigid airship. He was born July 8, 1838, in Konstanz, Prussia, and educated at the Ludwigsburg Military Academy. He entered the Prussian army in 1858. Zeppelin went to the United States in 1863 to work as a military observer for the Union army in the American Civil War and later explored the headwaters of the Mississippi River, making his first balloon flight while he was in Minnesota. He served in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, and retired in 1891 with the rank of brigadier general.
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Zeppelin's first expressed ideas for large dirigibles in 25 March 1874. Inspired by a recent lecture given by Heinrich von Stephanon the subject of "World Postal Services and Air Travel", Zeppelin outlined the basic principle of a large rigidly-framed outer envelope containing a number of separate gasbags. In 1887 the success of Charles Renard and Arthur Krebs' airship La France prompted him to send a letter to the King of W端rttemberg about the military necessity for dirigibles and the lack of German development in this field. At the age of 52 Zeppelin resigned from army in 1891 and devoted his full attention to airships. He spent nearly a decade developing technology. The first of many rigid dirigibles, called Zeppelins in his honour, was completed in 1900. Zeppelin LZ 1 was the first truly successful experimental rigid airship. It was first flown from a floating hangar on Lake Constance, near Friedrichshafen in southern Germany on 2 July 1900. The water colour shown below shows the scene
Many artists have captured the magnitude and elegance of Count Zeppelin's machines. The painting left shows an early Zeppelin in flight over the German countryside.
In 1910, a Zeppelin provided the first commercial air service for passengers. By his death in 1917, he had built a Zeppelin fleet, sadly some of which were used to bomb London during World War I.
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The illustration left is of a 1917 watercolour by Felix Schwormst채dt. Its translated title is: "In the rear engine gondola of a Zeppelin airship during the flight through enemy airspace after a successful attack on England." Strain and anxiety is shown on the lookout's face while mechanics concentrate on keeping the engines fully operational.
In World War I Submarine Scouts were the first of several types of airship used by the Royal Naval Air Service to escort merchant shipping convoys and to deter submarine attacks. Here, two Submarine Scout Zero craft hand over patrol duties over Dover Harbour, with Dover Castle in the background
Kenneth A McDonough's painting in 1978 effectively captures the discipline of hand over as one airship patrol ends and another begins. You can feel the wind on the faces of the two sailors as they exchange semaphore messages. The painting hangs in the Fleet Air Arm Museum at RNAS Yeovilton, Somerset, England
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'R34' In 1919 His Majesty's Airship 'R34' flew from Britain to New York and back, achieving the first east-west flight over the Atlantic; the first double air crossing and achieved by a dirigible (airship) with a world endurance record for the flight. 'R34' had two stowaways, a young aircraftsman and a cat. The R34 painting was presented to the UK's Fleet Air Museum by the Airship Heritage Trust in 2006. The striking illustration shown on the right "London from an Airship", was painted by Alfred Egerton Cooper (1883-1974) and published in 'The Sphere' magazine on 6 November 1920. It shows the airship NS11 above London; apparently it was fairly common for airships to be flown over the capital for official and semi-official reasons. The artist gives the outlook from one of the airship's cabin windows. Blackfriars Bridge, with its sister railway bridge, is seen spanning the river, whilst Temple lawns and trees are seen in the left foreground. The training ship “President” is seen floating off the Embankment, a vessel from which many naval volunteers passed for service at sea during the war. One the airship’s mechanics is precariously perched on one of the stays leading to the engine.
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Most likely Cooper used a photograph for reference for the painting. This image shows the photograph and painting side by side. While the gunner has been removed so many of the details and reflections in the photograph have been included in the painting.
See part four in issue 81 June 2014
Jane's All The World Aircraft 1913 at http://flyingmachines.ru/Site2/Arts/Art4720.htm
F type Enclosed Avro Monoplane. I spotted this on the site linked below. It is an indication of the intense interest in flying machines and the wide range of designs being tried out before WW1.
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Light is a form of electromagnetic radiation. It is the same form of energy as radio or radar, infra red heat or x-rays. It was Newton who first demonstrated that white light is composed of all the colours of the visible spectrum by shining white light through a triangular prism and he then further demonstrated that any colour thus produced cannot be further split up. Thus blue light emerges from a prism still blue. It was later shown that reflections and refractions “obey” “laws”, such as a reflection is as far behind a reflector (mirror) as the object is in front. Interestingly the connection between the angle of incidence and the angle of refraction of a beam of light passing through a transparent medium is the sine of the angles (Snell’s Law). This gives us the refractive index of any transparent material, vital in the understanding of optics. This is the physics behind the observation of a stick seeming to bend in water. The first practical colour photography was devised by the outstanding Scottish physicist, James Clerk Maxwell. His system used three monochrome cameras each fitted with a primary colour filter. The resultant images were then projected together through three projectors each with the original filters in place. The process works very well but is not very portable. Later nineteenth century photographers used the system to good effect, most notably the Russian Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky. Such images can now be digitised and viewed on computers with astonishing results! Not until the late nineteen thirties did conventional colour photography (Technicolor and Kodachrome in America and Agfacolor in Germany) begin to equal the results obtained by ProkudinGorsky although the modern systems are vastly more practical. Tolstoy in 1908. Colour photograph by Prokudin-Gorsky
Ciaroscuro
is a technique using a strongly lit centre with a notably darker outer portion of the field of view. It creates a very dramatic atmosphere and draws attention strongly to the centre of attention in a picture.
A most notable exponent of this technique in photography was the famous sports and crime photographer of the 1940s Weegee. Real name Arthur Fellig, he was a free lance newspaper photographer who lived and worked mostly in New York. His nickname came from A very typical Weegee picture. his seemingly uncanny ability to arrive at a crime scene or car crash before the police or anyone else. It was said that he must have used a Ouija board to get hot tips from supernatural sources!! The reality was more mundane! He cruised around in his car with all his cameras whilst listening in to the emergency radio traffic using a trunk (boot) full of large and weighty tube (valve) radio intercept gear of the period! The origin of his trademark chiaroscuro style was very mundane! The relatively slow speed of the film stock of that period coupled with the limited power of the flash guns then available, necessitated wide aperture shots thus producing the observed effect! An interesting spin off from his photographs was (and still is) “film noire”, literally”dark film”. This genre uses lighting in the same style as Weegee photographs. It is a style of cinematography associated with 1940’s Hollywood but is used world wide and has never completely disappeared. Steven Spielberg’s latest film, “Lincoln”, uses this technique very considerably. Because it is a mood that is created, not just a lighting effect, the term “film noire” also refers to the darkness of plot and characterisation in a “Harry Lime” (Orson Wells) in “The Third Man”. Perfect example of a film noire shot from one of the very greatest films of all time!
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a c a
s r d m a e e m e h e ) o
Joseph Wright of Derby painted several large groups with strong chiaroscuro, like The Orrery
Probably the most famous artist, insofar as the use of light is concerned, is Turner. Below is an example that shows the chiaroscuro style is his Dutch Boats in a Gale painted in 1801.
Light in paintings might be compared to the contrast grey scale in TV and computer monitors. The more the “contrast� the more is the ciaroscuro effect. Artists can learn much from the photos of Weegee and the cinematographers who are masters of film noire. Add to this the use of perspective and composition then the resultant work becomes considerably more interesting and eye catching. Roger Markman 12/12/13
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Mavas Trophy Meeting 04 02 14
February`s meeting was the first of three painting competitions per year and, on this occasion, there was no specified challenge subject. Fifteen members attended and fifteen paintings were entered by thirteen artist members. Significantly, at least fourteen other artist members failed to enter work for this competition. The winner of the event, chosen by consensus, was Peter Grove for his excellent pencil drawing of a RAE FE2b in action.
Below A.v.Roe by Terry Jones Bottom the massive It’s the Red Tails By A. Bramham
Left Lady in Red by Peter Nield Below Ron Sargeant’s P-38 Noses In, Storm Bird, Air Sea Rescue, Snowy Dak
Below Australian Half Flight by David Bates
Above Flak Bait By C.G.Taylor
Left Simply the Best By C.Jones
Below Farewell to VC10 By J.D.Williams
Left S.Kerry’s Eindeccker a digital print
Above Flying High By D. Taylor
Right Fiat Cr42 By K. Stancombe
Paintings were assembled on the Museum display panel next day by Colin Taylor, Peter Grove and Keith Stancombe.
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Percival Mew Gull
Ringway ‘39
Fairey Firefly at Woodford
Supermarine Spitfire Mk.XII
Avro 748 Prototype
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Featuring
Peter Nield Our Hero of the Issue 1936 was a good year. The Spitfire made its first flight, the Queen Mary made its maiden voyage to New York and Eddie VIII caused major ripples by chucking his hand in as potential King. It was also the year I was born in Oldham. Oldham was a dump but it was my dump so that was OK. I attended Werneth School on the Coppice. It was a bit rough but we got the basics. I remember well on the first day, drawing stick aeroplanes on a blackboard with my little friend Kel. German aircraft had crosses everywhere and received a thorough going over with red chalk as they plunged to earth. The aviation bug and a desire to draw was already there and has continued ever since. In fact, probably earlier as shown in the photo taken on the sands at Blackpool. I often wonder what I was looking at. Our Hero Meets the Enemy
Around that time, my dad joined the RAF (security) and went off to war to kill Hitler. He failed of course but at least he had a go.
Messerschmitt Bf.109E
I hardly saw him after that until he returned home a disturbed man in 1946. I realise now why he was troubled as he had witnessed some terrible events including the opening up of Belsen. Meantime, in my formative years, I had been dragged up by my mother, two aunts and a dominant grandma. Then my little sister came along. Bossy women all over the place, a bit like enduring a permanent strident rash. Couldn`t avoid them. No hiding place. Probably explains a lot. Shortly after, I moved to Hathershaw Junior School and then, in some mysterious way, I ended up at the Grammar School where, apart from art classes, I didn`t enjoy the experience one bit. Got flogged for laughing which I though was really the pits. Got the same again for fighting and wrecking some lockers which I suppose was fair enough. Anyway, I sat some exams and scraped through on the minimum – but enough to get me an engineering apprenticeship at Avro`s at Chadderton. To me, this was like going to Heaven and I couldn`t believe my luck. After going through the mill and studying at Oldham Tech for 5 years I Avro Anson at Woodford elected to work in the Structure Test Section of the Research Department, eventually becoming a Senior Engineer. This was a great job and involved a certain amount of drawing and sketching. Another couple of years brain damage at night school brought a decent qualification and I was happy with that.
Then, in the early 1980’s, the Air and Space Museum opened in Manchester. Wow! things were really looking up. As with many Museums, a Society of Friends was organised and started with around 600 aviation minded members. They also ran a Newsletter and, as I felt that we should have more Spitfire over Ringway aviation art in the place, I submitted an article requesting interested parties to attend a meeting in the Conference Room. This was one of the more useful things I have done in my otherwise boring life and, as a result of that meeting on 25th October, 1983, Manchester Aviation Art Group was born. Later on we happened to sell a painting at an exhibition of work on the premises but this is not allowed in a charitable organisation and, in order to keep the books legit, we were unceremoniously booted out by the management. For this reason, we became an outside body re-named Manchester Aviation Art Society. In practice, little changed but we were then able to sell paintings. In 1988, I was obliged to take early retirement because of health issues but membership of MAvAS allowed me to pursue my aviation interests in other Jodel D.117 at Barton ways. My association with MAvAS has brought me many good friends and is an invaluable source of knowledge and advice. A self taught artist, my preferred medium is oils and one of my main regrets is that I can`t paint quicker!
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December Meeting 03 12 12 December`s meeting was our annual Xmas social event. As usual, books, CDs, video tapes and the like were brought along for sale or swap. A supply of mince pies was to hand but these didn`t last very long. The 9 members attending were intrigued by Colin Taylor`s small Stirling closed cycle hot air engine which happily chugged away for a good part of the evening. Colin, of course, is known for his interest in rubber powered ornithopters so it was also fascinating to see the lightweight wooden model of a typical functioning wing that he had designed and constructed himself. This was generally a very pleasant evening involving much discussion about current projects and future plans.
January Meeting
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In some subtle way, the scheduled Quiz night by Peter Flitcroft developed into a video show which included some great images of Peter aboard a civilian North American T6 Texan flying out of Kissemmee Gateway Airport in Florida in the late 90s. This was much appreciated by the 9 members present, as were the follow up videos that showed sequences of the RAF in action taken by official film units during WW2.
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AIRISMS FROM THE FOUR WINDS
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Flight Archives December 1918
ONE can well believe that the discerning public, after having been severely inoculated with the thousands of wonderful photographs from above of the surface of this sphere of ours, will look for work from the bird's-eye point of view, from the brushes of our leading artists. It should become quite a business to hire out to artists some of our sausage balloons to enable them to correctly record on canvas what the pilot sees when passing through the air, and instead of a series of moored punts at some, very favourite artists' bit on the river, it may well become a common object of the landscape to see half a dozen " sausages " bending to the wind in the more picturesque districts of England. Not in our Backyard ?
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Hun Chivalry Steve Kerry looks ahead to October’s AVRO Trophy, getting away from the mud of the Western Front to the sand and flies of the Middle East. Here's a snippet from "Wings Over The Desert: In action with an RFC pilot in Palestine 1916-18" by Desmond Seward After landing, they were horrified to learn that one of the BE2Cs, piloted by Lieutenant Floyer with 2nd Lieutenant Palmer as observer, had failed to return. If shot down, they might have burned to cinders (since the RFC flew without parachutes); if they had made a forced landing, they would die from thirst or perhaps be tortured to death by Bedouin. Everyone knew they themselves might go the same way. T. E. Lawrence, who saw a lot of them, realized that airmen were bundles of nerves - like his Arabs, they ‘lived for the day and died for it'. A plane set off to search for Floyer and Palmer, but found nothing. The Colonel suggested that everybody have ‘a damn good lunch’, which was code for drown their sorrows in drink. Three days later, on the morning of 8 March, while the only six machines of No. 14 Squadron now serviceable were out bombing Junction Station, north of Arak el Menshiye, a two-seater Rumpler dived down from 4,000 ft over the landing ground at Kilo 143 and dropped a ‘smoke ball’, followed by a message bag. Then it flew off. Because this was mistaken for a bombing attack, two Australian aircraft from No. 1 Squadron, which was also based at El Arish, took off to attack the Rumpler, but it was too fast for them. The message was a letter from the Germans, saying they regretted having to inform their British opponents that they had shot down one of their machines. Luckily, however, pilot and observer had survived to enjoy an excellent lunch in their mess. The bag also contained requests from Floyer and Palmer for pyjamas and shaving tackle, with a note from their captors promising that these might be delivered in safety. That afternoon, a British aircraft dropped the items at Beersheba, with a message of thanks and also an apology from the Australians for trying to intercept the
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Rumpler. German fliers, some in white tropical uniform, stood outside their mess waving up at the pilot. On 13 March another enemy aeroplane visited Kilo 143. Again, the pilot signalled with a smoke bomb, shut off his engine, came down to 1.000ft and then dropped a satchel. This contained a photograph of Floyer and Palmer surrounded by German officers, including Gerhard Felmy and Richard Falke, the two fliers who had delivered the first message. With them were two Austro-Hungarian pilots. In addition, there was a letter from the German commander, Hauptmann Hellmuth Felmy (Gerhard's brother), to say that No. 14 Squadron's machines were always welcome to deliver messages and prisoners' kit; he gave his word that the German artillery would be ordered not to fire on British aeroplanes so long as they followed an agreed course at 1,000 metres and signalled with a smoke ball over a specified point. He also invited everybody at Kilo 143 to stay with him at his house in the country in Pomerellen, ‘as soon as this boring war is over’.
How the camels sniggered
08 02 14
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Ossie Jones`acrylic painting demo Stage 2
Stage 1 Stage 3
Stage 4
Stage 5
Stage 6
Stage 7
Stage 8
As his subject, Ossie had chosen the 6,500 ton Monitor “Marshal Ney” gun ship and portrayed it in action off the Belgian coast in WW.1 with a RNAS Farman overhead acting as a gunnery range spotter. As usual, he had prepared an original A4 pencil sketch which was then transferred over by eye to a larger canvas. The painting took approximately 4 hours to complete, excluding breaks, and the result was a very dramatic representation of the land bombardments that took place off shore in those days. Ossie’s demonstration was attended by R. Sargeant, R. Rumbold, P. Grove, K, Stancombe, P. Flitcroft, C. Taylor and P. Nield.
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onstration
Next Workshop is on Saturday 9th August when Ron Sargeant hosts a watercolour painting session.
Roger’s LZ48
Keith’s Buccaneer
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Newsround Probable Cause There has been no firm outcome of the investigation into the Casa of the Disappearing Brew Kit. Our investigators tendered the following conclusions. 1 The kettles probably ended up in some back street antique emporium. 2 The cups, sugar box and coffee and tea containers probably fell foul of a random sweep by the Hygiene Branch of the Health and Safety Police. 3 The biscuits were probably collateral damage from the above raid. The investigation team recommend that we quit while we are ahead.
Good News Those of you who are interested in the technical drawing process when planning your next masterpiece, will be delighted that Peter Nield has finally managed to get version three of the APM (Artist’s Perspective Modeller) program back on the market. Aviart.info will get you onto the website.
ASAA Success for MAvAS Member The Mavas Committee is proud to inform members and friends that Roger Markman is a worthy winner of the Aero Brush name that plane competition.
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Diary Dates Meetings are held from 7-00pm to 9-30pm in the Conference Room in the Air and Space Hall at the Museum of Science & Industry in Manchester on the first Tuesday in the month unless otherwise stated.
Tuesday 1st April
“D-Day Operations” A talk by Colin Taylor
Tuesday 6th May
“Life Drawing” Model – Peter Grove
Sat/Sun/Mon, 24/25/26th May
“East Lancs Wartime Weekend” Exhibitions Officer Peter Grove
Tuesday 3rd June
“Jim MacKendrick Trophy Competition” Subject – “D-Day, 6th June 1944” Adjudicator TBA.
Editor: Dave Bates Tel: 0161-284-3467 Email: david-bates@ntlworld.com Society website: www.mavas.co.uk