iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 11h

Some creative solutions only work when your aircraft is bigger than it looks. Others show that you can be starved for space despite size…

The MiG-25UTI proved that there was ample room for a second cockpit in the aircraft’s nose.

The Tu-22 trainer version at least afforded a good view from the seat stacked on top, just behind and above the cockpit.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

There are better options than the Defiant. tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-...

A version of the F9F Panther, a straight-wing jet fighter, with a rotating gun turret in the nose.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

It has it flaws, but it’s a good overview with an interesting angle. Intelligence intelligently placed in its context.

The cover of “Combined Fleet Decoded” by John Prados.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I think you are missing something.

Two geeky looking training aircraft in flight.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

It’s been a long time since I last read this. I remember it being good. But my knowledge of the period is also limited.

The cover of “Armies of God — Islam and the Empire on the Nile, 1869-1899” by Dominic Green.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

I think there are more important symmetry issues than the roundels. Not these cannot be solved —

In a sorry state, but still impressive: The DC-3 that was repaired with one DC-2 wing. Which was significantly smaller and a different shape.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

What’s it like inside your head?

An armour set with a face mask (for festive purposes, not combat) made ca.1530.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

If you see this, post your getaway vehicle

Artwork representing the “Locovoile”, which is a boat running on rails and pulled, apparently, by triplane kite wings attached to it.
Probably not real!

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

welcome to bluesky. please familiarize yourself with the following accounts to understand the range of opinions it is acceptable to express:

A miniature painting of a tree full of people, fighting each other to reach the top.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

872 days after pre-ordering it and with 37 euro extra in customs and administrative fees, but it has arrived… Look forward to Sharp’s dissection of nonsensical policy decisions.

The cover of Dan Sharp’s “Secret Projects of the Luftwaffe — Bombers 1939-1945” shows two jet bombers, of which one on fire.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Something like the space between the two hats. But 80% of this painting seem to be various shades of light reds. (Native speaker of Flemish aka ‘southern Dutch’)

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

I think I have it, though both of my references offer the same terrible picture of the floatplane version ;-)

Badly exposed picture of a parasol-winged, twin-float seaplane taking the air over Japan — not its country of birth.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Mommy is always sweet, cheerful and happy [thanks to her use of powders that contain codeine and phenacitin]. It is implausible what advertisers were capable of. (Industry Museum, Ghent.)

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

As for new destroyers, surely only one look will find the approval of this administration. And it is Stealthy as well.

A grainy picture of the ironclad CSS Virginia with her low, sloping, stealthy deck house.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

The Trump Battleship should be multi-functional to a fault —

HMS Furious in the “awkward teenager” phase of her growth from a light battle cruiser to aircraft carrier, with flight decks fore and aft and her bridge superstructure right in the middle.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

De Havilland DH115 Vampire (trainer) Letov S-116 MBB/Kawasaki BK 117 Heinkel He 118

The delightful little Boulton Paul P.120, an experimental, delta-winged jet aircraft.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Not featured yet in the 55-56 Jane’s, but it has the Lamson Air Tractor, which is quite a sight.

An angular biplane with an upper wing of inverted gull configuration, reinforced by lots of struts.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

It’s needed to deal with the really difficult cases.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Exhibition on Belgian Communism and Art in Mons/Bergen. This is rather good, in its diversity and swings from the tragic to the irreverent.

“Fussillé” by Guillaume Vanden Borre (1947) is a rough sketch in black ink of a body sagging to the base of a pole, held half-upright by his arms being tied around it.

Dustin’s invitation for the Feast of the Red Flag (the communist newspaper) in 1979 shows Karl Marx as a grinning red cat with a peacock tail.

“Ouradour-sur-Glane” by Leon Navez (1953) is a half-abstract painting showing two large? faceless men in Green uniforms, beating civilians with a rifle.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Really good exhibition at the Belgian Center for the Comic Strip.

Panel from “Alone”, a comic by Gazzotti & Vehlmann.
A girl on crutches asks — “Is it me, or did religious tensions increase since our death?”
Her companion replies — “Yes, it is disquieting. Fortunately Diane defuses the conflicts.”

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Share a book you'd love to see adapted into a movie

The title translates to “When the wolf devours the wolf”. It could be described as a murder mystery set in renaissance Italy, but that would simplify it a lot. The Lapo Mosca stories are bleak, but charming.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Would highly recommend this one. Fascinating stories, and really changes the perspective.

The cover of “The Maginot Line - A new history of the fall of France”, by Kevin Passmore. (What’s in a name.) Yale University Press, 2025.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

If it looks right, it flies right… Perhaps.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Crazy like a bucket of Frogs you say?

A French aircraft that looked clumsy and awkward thanks to the three engines mounted high above the wing, but otherwise not unreasonable.

A French aircraft, derived from an unreasonable type, with a big washing machine — well, armoured gun turret — stuck up front.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Sexiest, I don’t know. Most frivolous, probably! (Do 217K, M and N.)

A type of air brake used on the German Do 217 bomber, equivalent to sticking an umbrella at the tail end and opening it.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

What have we ever done to you?

Image from the (in)famous comic “Let’s kill all the Belgians.” It shows a zombie-like Belgian about to eat a hamburger with a puppy in it. The accompanying text says “If the Belgians came over to America, they would eat your puppy. If you don't have a puppy, they would buy you one and then eat it. That's how the Belgians roll.”
As a Belgian, I appreciate the sentiment.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Igo Etrich — with coworkers including Ernst Heinkel — developed the original Taube, patented it, and issued licenses to Lohner and Rumpler. But he found that he could not enforce the patent, so then everybody started copying the Taube design. I guess still calling it Taube was pragmatic courtesy.

The Etrich Taube II coming in the land in Vienna in 1910. Picture from the massive volume on Austro-Hungarian Aircraft of WWI by Grosz, Haddow and Schiemer.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

And it’s supposed to look like this after a mere 2000 years.

The triumphal arch of Orange in France. Exact date of building uncertain, but generally thought to date back to the reigns of the Roman emperors Augustus or Tiberius.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Quiz time — I will indulge as well, if everybody does. ID all four, and add a fifth variation on the common theme.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Every hometown's got the ominous megastructure, what's yours?

The tower of Sint Rombouts (St Rumbold’s) cathedral in Mechelen. The fact that at 97m it is somewhat short of its designed 167m only adds to its expression of massiveness.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Cities in warm climates are built very different. Updating our infrastructure will have to be a lot more far-reaching than putting in AC, although that might be a necessary quick fix.

A street in the town of Nîmes in the French Provence. A waterway runs along its length, with a little waterfall half way down the picture. Trees grow along its sides, creating a canopy of green over the water, which is dappled with spits of light.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

I agree that it absolutely looks like a Potez 25, even if the quality of the picture is poor. Puzzled by the markings.

Camera installation in the fuselage of a Potez 25, showing some cockpit detail.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

The original nose looked like this. Rather more elegant than that of the Buchón.

A HA-1109 at Madrid Cuatro Vientos. The type was a Bf 109 with a Hispano-Souza 12Z engine.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Now that’s annoying! Of course the Hansa-Brandenburg W33 and Heinkel HE-2 were close kin. I see Wiki indeed had this picture on its HE-2 page. But Mikesh & Abe have a good picture of the very thing, Y 112:

Japanese “Navy Type Hansa” seaplane in a good side view.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Never made it to “franchise” and I think that’s good, actually —

The Liberator spaceship of Blake’s 7, a series famous for sharp dialogue and wobbly decor

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Look what you missed! Far more beautiful than any of the above.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

I have a useful book for Fridays 😁

The cover of a German book on Flying Boats, Amphibians and Floatplanes, by Hans-Jürgen Becker.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

The vestimentary choices of the current incumbent are quite sufficient, don’t give him any ideas —

Bart De Wever, prime minister of Belgium, in one of his characteristic suits, conservative and modernist at the same time.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

It could be worse. He omitted the very obvious choice…

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

It is possible of course that Caproni built two similar biplanes. (That would be very brave.) But it looks like the picture was taken on the same day.

On a grassy field with strewn with small flowers, several people are gathered around something which looks too impractical to use as a tent, and therefore must be an aircraft.

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