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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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Larger, yet so much more common. Your report eagerly awaited!
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James D Kightly@jdkightly.bsky.social |
217 followers 330 following 289 posts
Does history - not an historian. Does aviation - not a pilot. Writes, reads, learns, communicates. Aviation Cultures Conferences. Interesting in many things. Freelance. He/him. Aviation content based at: vintageaerowriter.wordpress.
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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Larger, yet so much more common. Your report eagerly awaited!
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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When people blather real historic aircraft 'should be flying!' (but can't be found when it's time to PAY for such activities) I find it tedious. But flying scale models of neat and rare things like this Vickers Wellesley pinned [PINNED I say!] to the ceiling, should be released to fly again...
1 replies 1 reposts 4 likes
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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Gayle Hunnicutt does a good job, considering needing to be 'the most beautiful' for a couple of VERY odd men - better written than to play.
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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Wolf Kahler got to play another Germanic king, the Kaiser, in 'The Riddle of the Sands'! If you're going to be typecast, do it at the top.
1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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Tonight's Entertainment: Rewatching the very first Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes 'A Scandal in Bohemia'. Remembering it was the first, it's interesting to note what tone was chosen. Great cast, lovely nods to SPaget illustrations. Tristesse seeing Brett on best form, and wishing him a longer life.
1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Tristan Snell
@tristansnell.bsky.social
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BREAKING -- New York Public Library for the win! After a massive public backlash, NYC's libraries are getting their funding back -- and will be open on Sundays again. Take a bow, folks -- WE did this.
13 replies 312 reposts 1842 likes
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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Here's the then-RAF Museum's Dornier Do 24 loaded onto a trailer for transport to Holland. Donated to the RAFM, it was displayed in Spanish air-sea rescue colours for many years. But there's several elements to the story, inc who donated it, that you need to read in the Aeroplane Monthly Database...
1 replies 1 reposts 3 likes
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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I share this as SAT was a CIA not-very covert airline that didn't become as infamous as it should've (viz Air America, inc Movie, w Mel Gibson)... ...but also PNG saw the biggest pre-WWII airlift: for gold (like oil, but less messy) using extra large aircraft of THAT day, Junkers 'Peter' & 'Paul'.
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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Southern Air Transport supported Chevron's drilling in the (roadless) highlands of Papua New Guinea, from Nadzab. Chevron work, near Lake Kutubu, was totally dependent on SAT's L-100 Hercules. PNG has v challenging flying conditions, due to rapidly changing tropical weather and the rugged terrain.
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Jan Murphy
@packrat74.bsky.social
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💙📚 Talk about the books you love. Just posting the book cover and saying the book is significant to you is not enough. The cover alone is just like a pile of promo postcards or bookmarks, sitting unheralded on the bookstore counter (which customers rarely take with them). Your words matter.
0 replies 7 reposts 21 likes
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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No.1: Just. Write. The Point: It's ALL built on that. No writing, you've got nothing. There are times not to write, of course, but if you don't have some time writing: return to the point. More words, messy words, fine. Short notes to build on fine. And so on. No writing: return to the point.
0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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Emily Lakdawalla
@elakdawalla.bsky.social
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Write first, edit later. Let the misspellings and bad grammar happen, just keep going. If you realize a whole para you just wrote is prolly trash, write UGH FIX THAT LATER, shake it off, and keep going. Editing will make it better, but editing can only happen when there is text to edit.
1 replies 6 reposts 20 likes
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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100 Agree. The job of fighters is to control the sky. If you're doing air superiority right, there's nothing much LEFT to shoot down, and kill-counts are low. High kill counts by aces can just mean you're in a target rich environment ~ because you're losing. (Luftwaffe's 200+ aces, Eastern front.)
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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Have to say young Aussies seem pretty savvy about alcohol...
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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Fair, I think. (Also no receipts.)
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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Even just chatting to Americans in the US, is interesting. It's weird what a different take they have on that funny revolution than the 1980s UK curriculum outlined it! Joking aside, it's important to stay aware history REALLY changes shape as through a prism, depending on where you're 'standing'.
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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Something @alanallport.bsky.social probably would have the same exp as me, is living in a country where you didn't go to school (in my case as a returned expat). So History is a mix of "No, never heard of it/her" and "Really? And you don't find that odd? Sure? REALLY Sure? Because that's nuts mate."
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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Land of bizarre contradictions indeed.
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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I think Curtin's handling of the vital pivot from UK to US support in WWII was a tough job, well handled, and unknown outside Aus. I think he saw being PM was actually a job that needed to be done, unlike so many others (inc Menzies) who had var elements of ego.
john.curtin.edu.au/pmportal/tex...
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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...unless you want a swimming pool named after you.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_...
1 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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If you're not sure with a historian, throw a book at them as you retreat. This may be of interest / use? unsw.press/books/zombie...
1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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I'm not popular, but certainly for me. It's a good Q, and I really can't answer, for reasons you'll probably understand - having been expat most of my life, I have no 'feel' for the popular views in Aus history and politics. I would say, perhaps wrongly, that Menzies is equiv to pre-history to most.
2 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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It's nice how much modern Australia has managed to. Doubly so as he'd be very peeved. I wish I didn't have to have spent time dealing with him either!
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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With a heavy dose of Night Witches irony...
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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"You want to have a franchise in the airport? Great! You're OPEN when there are flights, closed only when the airport's closed." It says who matters that's not a requirement.
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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All that 'dystopia's here, they've copied those movies', and this comes up in my timeline like it's a good thing. Have they SEEN the movie? I mean...
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Dan Ellin
@danellin.bsky.social
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A wooden model of a Wellington that F/O Bob Butler gave to his nephew. He said it was painted with genuine paint. Bob flew operations as an air gunner with 99 and 218 Squadrons before before going missing in the North Sea on 23/24 Sept 1942.
2 replies 2 reposts 13 likes
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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I've been volunteering with the Royal Australian Air Force Museum, Point Cook, since 2005, and more recently supporting 100 Squadron RAAF, so it'll be quite the anniversary next year! Here's two responses to a recent tour we received:
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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Nup, just rude, in any language. Accepting the gift of food hospitality is (or damn well should be) a human baseline. After all it's been so for most of human history, worldwide. Vikings, et al: "Slaughter the guests AFTER the dessert and nuts, OK?"
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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Interesting musings by @alanallport.bsky.social . Further comments?
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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Menzies (Aus) failure as a colonial politico in Britain in WWII contrasts with Smuts (SAfrica) in WWI.
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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And Aus PM Menzies partly lost government because he was so desperate to be 'British to his bootstraps' and spent too much time in the wartime UK and missed the change in mood in his *actual* home and country, Aus. Churchill? Hmm. Mythologised into a Union Jack wearing bulldog, so there's that.
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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There's a Canadian element worth mentioning, some Beaverbrook character there? The whitewashing of Br standard establishment anti-Jewish racism once it was evident that's what the Empire accidentally was fighting against.
1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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Today's (5 years ago!) post on my 'A Year of Aviation Illustration & Art' is an interesting riff on the 'nose art' theme. Yes, it's a female, but it's from an artwork by a female artist, it's Diana the Huntress, and it's on the tail. Read on...
yearofaviationillustration.home.blog/2019/06/27/d...
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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Ha! You might think that, reasonably! But no, similar, yet FAR more cynical and world weary, it’s the skoolboy Nigel Molesworth: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_M...
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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SUCH a great book. Reread now set…
1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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Concorde was an amazing technical achievement. With aspects that are still under appreciated. Here's a unique moment in the type's development. Including making holes in the cabin roof of a high-flying, pressurised, only partly-tested, supersonic prototype... vintageaviationnews.com/aviation-mus...
0 replies 2 reposts 3 likes
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Emily Lakdawalla
@elakdawalla.bsky.social
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I want to meet your wife at L.A. museums and critique them, that sounds hella fun. Let’s start at the Hammer Museum, which has the most hilarious disclaimer of an exhibit intro I have ever seen in any museum ever. “These works represent the taste of an industrialist[derogatory]…”
1 replies 1 reposts 9 likes
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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It is! Locally, the W Class is as beloved and identified with Melbourne as the Routemaster bus was with London. It was part of Melbourne's Commonwealth Games opening, examples have been exported to New Zealand and San Francisco's tram museums, and so Sir Elton started collecting with the best tram.
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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One of the neat posts I got to do 5 years ago today. 'Paper Tigers' on my A Year of Aviation Illustration & Art blog. Big thanks to Dr Kate Bagnall ( @baibi on Twitter when it was a functional comms place!) and Min Guo for help. yearofaviationillustration.home.blog/2019/06/26/p...
0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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Props to Sir Elton John's choice when out of his tree going to buy a W Class Melbourne tram.
1 replies 2 reposts 2 likes
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Jessica Ritchey
@jmritchey.bsky.social
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I'd wondered why the 1918 flu epidemic left such a small footprint in the movies/books/art of the time, but I get it better now.
43 replies 222 reposts 1463 likes
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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The Thesis Whisperer does good stuff and good things. So I ask my PhD candidate and academic friends, lend her your feedback! Please.
1 replies 4 reposts 4 likes
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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'Lots online', not Lost... But there you go.
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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Herbert Paus covers of 'Popular Science'. Is flying Safe? Well...
I'm a big fan of Paus' blocky, outlined style. Lost online - benefit of an unusual surname. More about him here: societyillustrators.org/award-winner...
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Brett Holman
@airminded.org
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Here at the RAF Museum to meet the mysterious @exoticaviation.bsky.social
3 replies 1 reposts 6 likes
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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And some more: vintageaerowriter.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/m...
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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Years ago I posted on the neat 1950s 'Landseaire' flying yacht, as covered by Andrew Loomis of 'Life' magazine. Always good to introduce people to this surprisingly rare story, and for those that know it, I'm sure they won't mind seeing it again: vintageaerowriter.wordpress.com/2010/02/10/1...
2 replies 3 reposts 4 likes
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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Wait'll you hit a Pimms. The soft drink that isn't.
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James D Kightly
@jdkightly.bsky.social
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Last Night's Entertainment. Always a delight when a vaguely remembered movie proves better than you recalled. 1997's 'Shooting Fish': a very young Kate Beckinsale, Dan Futterman & Stuart Townsend, and cameos from Peter Capaldi & Phyllis Logan among other familiar faces. It's not perfect, great fun.
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes