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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

This was spotted recently in Canary Wharf, London (not my photo) I was hoping it was for a long-awaited erotic documentary about the Hunslet AT77 air towing tractor, but it’s season 2 of the somewhat-messy Alien: Earth

Colour photo. A member of the public watching black-armoured soldiers around the entrance of something very much resembling the Aliens APC, with another one in the foreground

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

In tribute to the new Godzilla trailer.. “A front view of a Japanese four engine land bomber. Atsugi, Japan, 5 September 1945. (Captured material)” (Nakajima G5N Shinzan (深山"Deep Mountain") ) (via fold3.com/image/29021573)

Black and white photo. Front view of the Shinzan in a field, looking fairly intact

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Wow..I’ve replayed Final Fantasy VII a few times over the years, and never noticed this Macchi (M.67?) Schneider Trophy Racer until now! 🤷‍♂️🤯

screenshot from FFVII - the front half of a red Macchi racer docked at the bottom of the Costa del Sol harbour screen!

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

In Denmark, the Museum That Has Some Flying Machines was closed, so I had to go to the Boat Museum (Boats are best known as bath toys, but some were also old and big! Boats can also be seen in films such as Speed 2, Under Siege, and Captain Phillips)

Colour photo. A glass cabinet of large high quality ship models

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

“Concorde - 001's solar rendezvous", by Simon Cattlin (www.simoncattlin.com/gallery/001s...) a tribute to an actual event: this aircraft - still in the process of being tested - chased a solar eclipse over Africa for 70 minutes in 1973 (www.vice.com/en/article/t...)

oil painting. head-on aerial view of a Concorde high above the clouds. in the background, an eclipse in a jet-black sky casts a long shadow over the clouds under the aircraft, alongside a vivid blue horizon

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

I thought I’d finally take one of those “sausage leg” holiday photos from the beach, except the beach in this case is underneath a Su7BKM Fitter A 💅

Colour photo. Looking at beach legs lying down in the shade under a Cold War jet

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

I’m too tired to photoshop a smile on this Aerotécnica AC-12

Colour photo. A fairly old two-seat Spainish helicopter. No front windows. A front engine cowling with holes that look like
•_•

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

GUEST STAR: Noel Edmonds with a model of the “Hydro-Wing/Excalibur” powerboat, 1981 The man behind the venture, Basil Wainwright, was going to make Edmonds the fastest man on water ..but the Excalibur was a made-up project, and Edmonds lost a load of money 1/2

black and white photo. A smiling Edmonds holding the model aloft. The craft is incredible looking - the lower submerged part resembles a stretched, pointy miniature HOTOL spaceplane, with a fin leading up to the crew section, which looks like a curved, delta wing escape capsule of a spaceship

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

I went to a indie comics fair this weekend, and this offering by Matt Simmons (@sherifffreak.bsky.social) so perfectly encapsulated the spirit of the event that I may never remove these zines from their brown paper bag 🏅

A small brown paper bag with basic black felt tip writing: “FATHER OF DUNE: Four DUNE zines I made for my Dad, using my left hand”

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

The World Cup semi-final lineups are confirmed, and excitement is building..

the French Dyle et Bacalan DB-10, a weaponless bomber designed to fly over the enemy to send them mad - like the spiky ball thing in Event Horizon

the Spanish Libélula Viblandi early helicopter. Beguilingly erotic

the British Blackburn Blackburd, or “can we build a plane using Etch-a-sketch”

$the Argentine FMA I.Ae. 38 Naranjero cargo plane, one of the many post-war German projects ̄\_(ツ)_/ ̄$

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

William Quartermain's "Aërotransitor” ornithopter of 1887 after attempts to create a motor driven by “gases generated from vegetable products” failed, Quartermain turned to a human-powered flapping mechanism - much to the apparent disdain of his good wife 1/2

A smartly dressed, bearded, ageing, slightly portly old man stands in a cross between a fancy-roofed bathtub and balloon gondola holding one, possibly two, levers to flap two large pairs of wooden-framed wings protruding from the roof. in a potentially unique twist, the craft is situated directly in front of the front door of his house, which looks newly-built for the time. In the meantime doorway, a smartly darkly-dressed lady with a serious expression looks into the camera

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

From a longer poem called “The First Airman”, circa 1920 This excerpt appeared in the intro to the book “No Echo in the Sky”, by Westland test pilot Harald Penrose. He was also very much into birds, and wrote various tales of his observations while flying #WorldCurlewDay

“Give me the wings, magician! So their tune Mix with the silver trumpets of the moon, And, beyond music mounting, clean outrun The golden diapason of the sun.
There is a secret that the birds are learning
Where the long lanes in heaven have a turning And no man yet has followed: therefore these
Laugh hauntingly across our usual seas.
I'll not be mocked by curlews in the sky;
Give me the wings, magician, or I die.
HUMBERT WOLFE”

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

Great to see this church back in the news!

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Inherited a nice camera and gannets - my favourite British bird - were a perfect test subject

Colour photo. A gannet launching itself downward off a rocky ledge, with another looking on, head slightly cocked in the classic bird way

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

NO, YOU’VE got an unfinished 1/72 model of a PZL.23 Karas in the back of your (very dirty) 1.6Xi Subaru Impreza 🤷‍♂️

quite simply an unfinished 1/72 model of a PZL.23 Karas in the back of a dark blue (very dirty) 1.6Xi Subaru Impreza

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

The opening sentence of BOMBERS (1942), by Charles Grey Grey - founding editor of THE AEROPLANE magazine (To his colleagues: “a gentle and kindly man”. Elsewhere: big fascist sympathiser with extreme right-wing views 🤷‍♂️)

“How The Bomber Developed

Man being the predatory animal which he is, naturally as soon as the idea of flying grew, there grew with it the unpleasant idea of dropping things on people..”

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

For no reason whatsoever, I was wondering if a F-15 (RIP) has ever been photographed alongside (or even in the same shot as) a member of the Sukhoi “Fitter” (RIP) family Maybe during one of the early 80s “Bright Star” exercises between the US and Egypt, but I think the Sukhoi was retired by then(?)

“An air-to-air top view [over desert and irrigated green fields] of U.S. and Egyptian aircraft in formation during the joint exercise Bright Star '83. The aircraft (clockwise from bottom right) are an Egyptian F-4 Phantom II, Mirage 2000, MiG-17, American A-6 Intruder, Egyptian MiG-15, American A-7 Corsair II, Egyptian MiG-21, Egyptian F-16B Fighting Falcon, and an American F-14 Tomcat, center”

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

a 1/144 model of the "Titov V" spaceplane from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY this appears briefly in the novel, and in the movie script - but made it to screen only as a blurry model on a desk in the space station's Hilton Hotel (Aeroflot cabin crew are visible in the scene) 1/2

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

“The Space Shuttle Challenger, atop a mobile launch platform, slowly moves through Florida fog to Launch Pad 39A in preparation for its first liftoff, Kennedy Space Center, Florida, US, 30th November 1982" (via www.flickr.com/photos/sdasm...)

Colour photo. Long-distance aerial shot of Challenger on the vehicle. The low fog resembles a dust storm, with a long thin shadow of the shuttle cast across it

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

"I'm not being controlled, I'm standing up for myself for the first time in my life...I wake up every morning grateful for the life I chose, and have found peace and relief"

Brooklyn Beckham, holding a copy of A J Jackson's "Blackburn Aircraft since 1909" (Putnam)

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

in 1843, Frenchman Émile Gire patented a steam-powered (aeolipile) balloon, armed with bombs and a cannon “FR-1843-11213: Means and Methods of Directing Aerostats, Without Using Ballast, and Their Application as a War Machine” this was one of the first “serious” proposals for an armed aerial craft

Old book illustration. A balloon over a countryside of smoking and exploding buildings. Under the balloon is a smaller sphere - presumably related to the aeolipile steam turbine. Underneath this is a very large bowl-shaped gondola, with two aeronauts busy. A large rudder is attached to the gondola, and it looks like a cannonball is being fired. The caption is “Le ballon à éolipyle d'Emile Gire (1843)”

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

Supermarine Spitfire “TZ138” at the 1949 Cleveland Air Races. It survives, registered as C-GSPT, in Vancouver This has a heady history, like so many from the era. Owners across North America, accidents and incidents, e.g. "damaged in Florida by Castro supporters" aerialvisuals.ca/AirframeDoss...

black and white photo, the polished metal Spitfire in flight, banking past a race pylon. It has the number "80" and a small Canadian Air Force roundel on the side of the fuselage, on a thin lightning trim

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

Her Majesty's V-Bomber Force (taken by ME - of all people, can you Adam and Eve it - at the Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum back in 2013. these are now all at different locations)

Colour photo. Taken from a path with buddleia. mounted Vulcan, Valiant, and Victor nose sections - next to each other - in front of a large corrugated iron shed. the Valiant is looking particularly sad, cockpit shrouded and nose missing

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

For Hayao Miyazaki’s birthday, two creations that I put together over the Xmas break. The Laputa robot model was in a box for over a decade, and it felt like time to build it

Colour photo. A Porco Rosso “paper theatre” - a small “box” consisting of five layers of scenery - stands next to an olive-green model of a robot soldier from Laputa/Castle in the Sky (minus arm spikes and moss)

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

“L-R: George Palmer Putnam, Mrs. Putnam, the former Amelia Earhart, Mrs. Amy Mollison nee Johnson and Capt Jim Mollison basking in the sand at Rye, New York on 29/07/33. The flying Britons celebrated their first wedding anniversary with the Putnams." apimagesblog.com/historical/2... 1/2

Black and white photo. The four sitting on sand, in dark bathing suits and vests. Other beachgoers, and a promenade behind them. Johnson has bandages and scars on her legs, and a plaster on a finger. Mollison, wearing a sun visor(?) has bandages on one side of his face, and on his hand. They don’t look entirely happy

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

imagining an alternate reality where ungainly, gold-embossed Louis Vuitton helicopters splutter across idyllic countryside vistas - these were his grandchildren! "Prototype Jean et Pierre VUITTON, 1909"

Black and white photo - a moustached Frenchman in overalls and beret sits on a metal chair attached half way up a square pyramid frame. above are two sets of four oar-like rotor blades, and a second frame ends in a small two-blade pusher. he is being observed by a man on top of a balcony in this warehouse

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

Lt Stuart Culley launches from a "lighter" - a barge used to tow flying boats - fitted with a take-off platform, to attack Zeppelin L53 off the coast of the Netherlands, 11/08/1918.. incredible art by Keith Ferris (keithferrisart.com/product/just...) 1/2

Colour painting. A vivid view of a Sopwith Camel taking off from what effectively looks like a small boat with a metal platform/roof on top

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

the fantastic rear of the Parseval PL25 German patrol airship, which becomes some kind of alternate-universe dreamliner in its own right

black and white photo. the rear of an airship, resting on the ground. pale, whith a boatlike hull, with a nice set of portholes at the rear of the car, and two very large props either side

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

to me, every worthy/serious Bond argument or opinion just ends at a dead end right here:

A yellow and blue parrot/macaw(?) on a perch, it’s squawking things like “Bond! Bond!”, “Thank you! Thank you!”, and “Give us a kiss!”

An actress playing a flustered Margaret Thatcher. She’a on the phone to the charmer James Bond. OR IS SHE

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

Came across this in my bookmarks today, from 1989 I might start implementing the old-fashioned five seconds of silence, before the continuity announcer inhales, into everyday life youtu.be/ApYXnCaNG0Y

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

I recently got a birding scope for a significant birthday. With a phone attached, I took this photo - I think it’s the Moon - yesterday evening, low in the smoky French countryside

Photo of the first quarter Moon viewed through a birding scope - a ridge of craters along the terminator

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

The “president shitting on his people” video is awful on many levels - including that AI has a reasonable chance of crashing the US stock market - but it also highlights that there is only one jet-powered fertiliser-spraying aircraft that matters 👹

black and white photo. A PZL M 15 Belphegor spraying white clouds, with a vast forest in the background

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

“It's just one of those days when you don't wanna wake up Everything is f*cked, everybody sucks You don't really know why But you wanna justify THE NEED FOR A MORE COMPLETE DESCRIPTION OF TURBULENT MOTION” (From the Aeronautical Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society, March 1971)

photo a journal article: “The Determination of the Position of Maximum Velocity in Turbulent Shear Flow
F. DURST, B. E. LAUNDER
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Imperial College, London”

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

Perhaps of the few aircraft that could be deemed worthy to survive the rapture: the Evangel 4500 - designed by bush pilot Carl Mortenson ("no formal education in aeronautical engineering") for STOL missionary work. only 8 made - most came to an end in S America, but the 1st is still going (N4501L)

Colour photo. a smallish twin engined taildragger on the banks of a lake, with wooded hills in the background under a clear blue sky. A fairly nice looking bird. Lots of straight lines, square side windows, straight functional dihedral wings and tail. Engines in long rectangular cowlings coming out far forward of the wings. This one looks to have a primarily dark blue fuselage, with white and yellow trim detailing on the wings and tail

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

“A photon rocket glides swiftly across the face of the Triffid Nebula, bound for some remote part of our Galaxy" art by David A. Hardy - featured in EXPLORING SPACE, by Heather Couper, 1985 (archive.org/details/expl...)

Colour artwork. the eerie blood-red hues of the nebula frame the whole shot, glowing supergiant-blue in the centre against dark dust strands. in the foreground, the ship appears to be passing overheard - resembling a spire containing fuel cells, and a large lampshade rear

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

It was also, often, a communal journey - as the Internet was something you usually accessed in college or uni computer rooms I remember a whole row of desks losing their minds when someone found the “Thundercats outtakes”

Stock photo of an old man reclining with pipe and walking stick

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

I like to imagine - 6 billion+ years from now - some residents of the remnants of this clumpy galaxy starting their own deep space survey, looking at our pretty galaxy as it is now, and wondering how things are going within one of the minor spiral arms 👋

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

“the hell are you wiseguys all staring at?! Scram, capish? Badda-bing badda-boom”

black and white photo. a large Ryan Firebee guided missile - the with an “angry” shark mouth painted on its front air intake has been unveiled to a crowd of suited wiseguys. “BGM-34B STRIKE SUPPORT WEAPONS SYSTEM” is written above the curtains

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 07/09/2025

apparently, yesterday was National Hummingbird Day, and it reminded me of something I saved off the other place a few years ago - someone (I’ve lost who, sorry) made this KC-135 Hummingbird feeder! It got me thinking about a fighter-sized bird.. 1/3

colour photo. A hummingbird hovers in front of a drogue-like fitting on a model KC-135, possibly 1:48 scale - suspended from a garage door or porch roof

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 07/09/2025

"On 16 November 1982, Columbia approaches Edwards AFB bringing to an end STS-5” (photo by Erik Simonsen (author of PROJECT TERMINATED! crecy.co.uk/project-term...)

colour photo. Side view of the shuttle and leading T-38, that are rather small silhouettes against a deep orange and yellow sunrise

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 07/09/2025

from “Encyclopedic Dictionary of Young Technician”, a Soviet kid’s science and engineering book, 1987 (archive.org/details/luKr...)

colour magazine scan. an extremely colourful photo: two teenagers and a younger child, dressed in very retro jumpers and shirts, examine an elaborate display of metal (or shiny plastic?) rockets and other educational devices relating to propulsion(?)

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

I know its World <Something> Day pretty much every day, but earlier I found out its World Dog Day while smoking a cigar in a monoplane and listening to Shakira, and I was iiiinstantly reminded of this banger: “Monoplane", and his co-pilot - Shakir Jerwan. Moisant aviation school, Long Island 1/

Black and white photo. A leathered and helmeted-up moustached aviator beams at the camera in the open cockpit area of a very old monoplane. Behind him, a dog with goggles atop it’s head - maybe a bull terrier of some kind - appears to be in a chill pose with a cigar in it’s mouth

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

“Welcome to <actual> Conair!” “A mid 70s shot of the Conair [firefighting] Fleet at Abbotsford Airport (YXX), including TBMs, A-26s and the Venerable DC6. This was also the period in time when Conair transitioned from 337 Skymasters to TS60 Aerostars as air attack platforms” (rb.gy/p69gq)

A white DC-6 with red stripe does a low pass next to the parked Conair fleet, over 30 aircraft in four rows. Stormclouds over the hills in the background add to the drama

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

MEGATHREAD™ the Star Wars original trilogy movies are strewn with objects that are aeronautical in origin. let's try and round up as many as we can not covered: prequels, sequels, spin-offs main credits/links at the end 1/

black and white publicity still - Darth Vader at the controls of his TIE fighter

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

#AlienDay greebly detail being added to the Narcissus shuttle, via a variety of Airfix kits as with Star Wars, vehicle/ship model kits were generally preferred over aircraft ones - though the Nostromo and its refinery used over 200 space shuttle (and dozens of Darth Vader TIE fighter) kits 1/3

colour photo: the shuttle from Alien, as a sculpted wooden(?) wedge, being covered with plastic panelling and detailing. various modelling kits are strewn around it

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

Happy #AlienDay from this Hunslet AT77 air towing tractor

black and white photo with of a two-tone coloured air towing tractor

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

the unofficial insignia of the 509th Bomb Wing during the period of B-2 bomber test flights. the 509th was based at Roswell Army Airfield during that totally obscure UFO incident of 1947.. "TO SERVE MAN" - from a Twilight Zone episode “GUSTATUS SIMILIS PULLUS” ("Tastes like chicken")

colour photo of a round patch a typical “grey” alien’s head is prominent, with thin fingers holding the outline of a B-2 bomber to its mouth, with a green a white striped background that also features two tridents. The black border says “TO SERVE MAN” (top) and “GUSTATUS SIMILIS PULLUS” (bottom) in yellow writing

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Echoes in the Sky @exoticaviation.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

starting the week going through my blocked and muted content ⚠️

black and white photo, from the 1970s. an worried-looking man in short-sleeved shirt and tie stands in front of a table that contains stacks of paperwork. he's holding something from the top of the highest stack, that reaches to his shoulders. behind him is what looks like a giant gridded gantt chart/project whiteboard, but we can't make out the items written on there. in the corner of the room, next to a blank blackboard and mounted on a stand, is a giant vertical model of a North American-Rockwell NAR-161B shuttle orbiter on the back of a Convair/General Dynamics B9U fly-back booster

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