Posts by Leigh Edmonds
Panhard AML-90 in 1/72 by Ace
After World War II and into the 1950s the French Army used large numbers of British Daimler Ferret armoured cars in North Africa. It decided to acquire similar vehicles with a wider range of armament and, after testing prototypes, selected the design from Panhard. Production of the Automitrailleuse Légère (AML) commenced in 1960 and since…
Read MoreThe Little Aviation Museum Newsletter 6
Here it is
Read MoreThe Curator’s Choice 021 – Biplane Fighters
Biplane fighters Fokker D.VII – Hawker Fury – Fiat CR.42 Even into the 1930s almost all fighter aircraft were biplanes, but things have changed a lot since then. We now have more than a hundred fighters in our collection but only a handful of them are biplanes. Let’s have a look at three of them.…
Read MoreAdditions to the Museum’s Collection – 021, 18 July 2022
Here’s the latest additions to the collection: Avro 618 ‘Ten’ in 1/72 by Valom Dassault Mirage III V0-1 in 1/72 by Modelsvit DeHavailland Canada DHC-8-100 in 1/72 by Hobbycraft Douglas DC-9-100 in 1/72 by Aurora The latest addition to The Wayne Gallery is: Messerchmitt Bf109G-14 in 1/32 by Hasegawa The revisions to the Workbench Notes…
Read MoreDeHavilland Canada DHC-8-100 in 1/72 by Hobbycraft
DeHavilland Canada designed and manufactured a series of successful general aviation and commuter aircraft, beginning with the late 1940s Chipmunk trainer and including the Beaver, Otter and Twin Otter. In the 1960s it produced the Dash-7, a relatively large fifty passenger four turboprop engined airliner and, in the 1970s, the company’s market research suggested there…
Read MoreA Summary Thematic History of Aviation in Western Australia between the World Wars
(This is the paper I prepared for the Aviation Cultures VI conference held on-line in July 2022. It is a summary of the story told in my book, Western Airways.) (A PDF copy of the paper is available here) This paper summarizes the results of research conducted into the creation of an aviation industry…
Read MoreDouglas DC-9-10 in 1/72 by Aurora
History will probably look back as favourably on the Douglas DC-9 and its subsequent incarnations as being as successful as the older DC-3. In fact it has turned out to be a much more versatile aeroplane than the DC-3 with increases in range and carrying capacity that were way beyond the developments that could be…
Read MoreThe Organization of Victory – The Organization of the Royal Australian Air Force during the Pacific War
This is a book I wrote at the beginning of the 1990s about the organization of the RAAF during the Pacific War. The research was part funded by a Grant in Aid from the Australian War Memorial and a travel grant from Murdoch University. It has been floating around unpublished and finding no home since…
Read MoreFlight in Australia Volume 3 – Flight into Turbulence 1972-2001
Circumstances these past few years have prevented me from publishing this third volume of my history of civil aviation in Australia in the Twentieth Century. As more delays are likely I’ve decided to make a text only version of the history available now. Time will tell if this history ever sees publication in another form.…
Read MoreThe Curator’s Choice 020 – Big Cargo Aircraft
Big Cargo Aircraft Lockheed C–5A – Antonov An-124 – Boeing 747-8F Carrying freight is not one of the most exciting or attractive of human pursuit, but it is vital for our way of life. With this thought in mind I went along to have a look in the Gallery of Cargo Aircraft. There are some…
Read MoreThe Beginnings of Aviation in Western Australia, by Jim Grant
(A PDF copy is available here) Preface The following history was written by Jim Grant, a prolific researcher and writer of military, aviation and Western Australian history. He gave it to me as a text file many years ago and, so far as I have been able to determine, it has never been published. I…
Read MoreEntertaining Duty – A short history of Brigadier Martyn’s Air Force
(This article first appeared in the fourth issue of Logbook, c.1997.) (A PDF Copy is available here) Only two years before World War II started no RAAF aircraft of any kind were based in Western Australia, but there was an Air Force. Not until March 1938 did the Royal Australian Air Force become permanently based…
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