00456 Airstrips!

Although it might seem unnecessary to provide a runway for seaplanes, I'm nothing if not an innovator. Early testing of the airstrip concept is really working out well, although early reports are suggesting that many of the land-based infrastructure elements that we're developing are bing stone-walled because the aircraft haven't got any engines and are really small.

Needless to say, finding aircrew is also proving problematic.

In other news, the TP 7b finally made it off the line:

It's certainly helped to answer a few questions (though sadly not the most frequent: "how much time do you have on your hands?"

00444 The TP 1x

A short excerpt from Ben Gingernut's new book "Penknives and Cockpits":


'In 1957 Geoff "Yaegermeister" Benton was searching for inspiration to drive forward a project code named "TP-1x". As he drove home one dusky spring evening, he passed a local school where two of the kids were playing with a stick, pretending it was a plane and throwing it from one to the other. Like a bolt of lightning striking him in the cerebellum, he knew what he had to do. He raced home and, without even answering his wife Brenda's greetings, he set to work in his study, slaving feverishly through he night, and well into the next day, ignoring calls from his office when he failed to show for work. He returned to work later on that afternoon rushing straight into his supervisor's glass fronted cubicle and waving aside his superior's anger at his late arrival. Ignoring the room's other occupants, his boss's 4 o'clock, he announced his breakthrough to an increasingly open-mouthed audience. When he was finished, everyone was silent. No one could quite take in the depth of his new discovery or the implications of what it would hold for he future of aviation. Work started almost immediately and within two months the prototype TP-1x rolled off the production line.

The euphoria didn't last long.

The paint wasn't even dry when the news came in. Everyone was devastated. No one could quite believe that they could have raised their expectations so high, only to have them dashed so brutally. In their excitement to go ahead with the project, especially in light of Geoff's ground-breaking discovery, they had overlooked one vital element in the complexity of the development. It turned out that the TP-1x, which on paper had seemed like the answer to all their prayers, was in fact only 4 inches long and made of sticks.

Geoff was inconsolable and two weeks after the discovery, he left his wife and drove off into the night. No one ever saw him again, but the next day his Brenda found his mini-leatherman lying on the sofa with a note. It read simply,

"Bollocks"'

00439 HMS Flotsam

Commissioned in 1936, HMS flotsam sailed the inshore bays of the Channel Islands providing air support for small children who had grown bored with throwing sand and digging. She was decommissioned after a collision with a six-year-old which left her listing heavily to port.

In her heyday the flight deck would be a hive of activity with mostly (sometimes entirely) imaginary crews prepping the aircraft for inland reconnaissance missions. Shortly before take-off, pilots would brace themselves for the force of "the hand" and subsequently "the throw", which would launch them to their almost certain doom.

Details of the original vessel are captured lovingly in this scale model:

00437 TP5B nostalgia

Seen here during maintenance, the TP5b underwent primary testing, but never lived up to the promise of increased range. At this time no craft had flown beyond a standard heft (right arm over)

00434 Tinier and tinier

As any responsible airline would, we are aiming to make safety our first, and in fact, only priority. With this in mind, it's with the greatest of pleasure that we welcome you all to the unveiling of the latest addition to out fleet:

The TTP1

At around half an inch in length, she's the smallest member of our line, but don't let that fool you. With the omission of engines of any sort and the use of materials found lying on a beach, we've managed to cut emissions down to a poultry 0 (unless it accidentally gets dropped on a fire, in which case that figure increases very slightly). But far more groundbreaking that that is the projected safety of the TTP1. With her lack of propulsion and fuel, and with no means of movement at all, coupled with being too small to fit into (by a long way), we've managed to completely eliminate any chance of fatality from all conventional forms of danger present in today's air transport. In fact, so benign is the TTP1, that we can now guarantee that your flight (such as it is) will be 99.995% safe. Were it not for the slight possibility of choking on the aircraft, we'd be looking at a completely clean sheet.

Happy flying!

00429 Plane to see

I give them away to children in the vain hope that they will last more than a minute



Which they never do

00419 See plain

Sea plane:

also on this beach:

winners and losers

At last over-design triumphs over beautiful simplicity. I've been waiting so long for practicality and common sense to take a back seat.