Page 40 - Studio International - October 1972

(Left to right) Tarrant Tabor 1919, Handley-Page Heyford 1930, Supermarine Walrus 1939
Certainly the rule of thumb about looking ribs and spars, does not figure forth the variety 1917, the German Linke-Hoffman company
right has never ruled out the fascinations of of tensions which it is designed to absorb. Apart experimented with transparent Cellon skins,
looking wrong, and such uncomfortable beauties from pioneer aircraft, the occasional 'flying test hoping that their aircraft would be virtually
are exemplified by Wren's admiring the Saro bed', and the vestigial externality of biplanes invisible (alas, Cellon caught or even focused the
Lerwick for giving the impression 'that those and helicopters, it is not normally visible. light and shone).? The 1939 Kirby Kite glider
wings could never persuade that bulky hull into External clues to an aircraft's internal structure could become transparent as it flew through a
the air'. An additional aesthetic dimension is may appear, as for example the geodesic bright sky. And of course much of the
introduced by the frequency with which structure of the Vickers Wellington may be fascination of pioneer aircraft resides in their
aircraft are seen in motion, with a rapidly glimpsed in the pattern of its crew-cabin uncovered engineering structures. Their mixture
changing configuration, like kinetic sculpture. window-frames. But once explained these of visual pattern and chaos is analagous to the
Our description of the Southampton z brought internal structures become spiritually quite as TV set whose innards are visible in perspex (a
us into gestalt ambiguities, and, conversely, real as one's sense of the internal structures of material which has retained something of its
Caroline Tisdall's analysis of Peter Hide's the human body — whether the bone and muscle aeronautical associations). Clearly an aircraft of
sculpture evokes a beginning aesthetic response looming so large in traditional art studies, or a fabric-covered wood will feel different from a
to aeroplane engineering. 'Strung between two sense of 'child-bearing hips'. In a variety of stressed skin metal construction. The movement
points like this, both girders sag and curve, ways, an aeroplane's external form suggests an towards a conceptualized tactility like that of the
causing the viewer the unease and ambiguity indication of an internal reality which, if visual arts is more developed in those aircraft
that makes suspension bridges so fascinating, the uncovered, could not fly. At any rate, this sense which use the two basic methods in different
sense of the metal's inert weight and the relative of its internal invisibles may reasonably be areas, or which mix them, like the Spitfire's
thinness of the bolts that hold it together'. Her considered as a variety of conceptual art. companion, the Hawker Hurricane, whose metal
reference to a dialogue between the elements Certainly, one's apprehension of the structure was fabric-covered, with the happy
that support and those that are supported applies Supermarine Schneider Trophy racers is result that shell-holes could be repaired by
a fortiori to aircraft, with their unique transformed by an appreciation of their very needle and thread and a patch. Which, for a
requirements as to the transference of stress and special technical problems, which suggested technology as advanced as 1945's, strikes me as
load throughout the lightest possible structure. their description as, in effect, flying radiators, a poetical fact, like the railed trolley on which
Slight as the old spruce-and-linen biplanes with the water in the wings and floats, the oil in the rear-gunner of Russia's 1914 Sikorsky Ilya
might look, they created their own steady wind the fuselage and even the tailfin. Mouromets bomber sped down the fuselage to
of up to 250 mph. The effect of such a gale on his battle-station just rear of the plane's tail.?
urban steel and concrete would read like a We have seen how a minimalist appreciation
science-fiction apocalypse. In regular service, of aircraft shades into an appreciation of pure
Concorde will easily exceed the 600 mph air form, and that into a sense of form-function
currents which ravage civilization in a novel of relationships. The latter relates to both pure
Gloster Gladiator II, 1939
J. G. Ballard's.5 In aerobatics, both light and science and to technology or engineering. All
military aircraft take much increased stresses. Aeroplanes, too, have cosmetics — from airline these factors are endowed with a special intensity
But even in routine airline service, take-off and livery to camouflage. The latter reminds us of by the precariousness of flight. The connections
landing each produce a unique pattern of the paradox that fidelity to function may require between aesthetics and engineering become
strains. And 'every change of altitude in flight, both an anti-functional appearance and infidelity intimate and direct enough to valuably
every acceleration and deceleration, means that a to one's material. Thus, the German flying complement some of the more successful fine art
redistribution of burdens must be made. . . . Up circuses of World War One used dazzling attempts to figure forth science for the spirit and
currents, side currents and down currents . . . patterns which broke up their aircraft's outline, the sensibilities. And they compare favourably
are constantly compressing, pulling, twisting, to confuse the enemy's aim in dogfights. British with certain superficial mixtures of the precious
and tugging, so that the designer's ties, struts bombers in World War Two were usually and the crudely-metaphorical,-particularly those - -
and beams must deputize for one another at a painted irregular patterns of green and brown which attract attention to the artist rather than
moment's notice .'.6 above to look like the landscape below, and the process, having, perhaps, begun, secretly, as
The internal structure, with all its girders, black below to look like the night sky above. In pretext rather than subject-matter. At any rate,

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