A century of flight, and the safest way to travel by a wide margin.
Come Fly With Me is a 1958 concept album by Frank Sinatra arranged by Billy May as a musical world tour. It reached number one on the Billboard album chart for five weeks and was nominated for Album of the Year at the inaugural Grammy Awards. Seven songs were recorded in a single session on May 29; 'Lush Life' was abandoned for being too technically demanding. The title track was written for Sinatra and became one of his best-known standards.
Sheet Music is 10cc’s second album, released in 1974. It was recorded at Strawberry Studios at night while Paul McCartney used the same space by day. The band used his drum kit. Every track was co-written by a different pair of the four members. It contains ‘The Wall Street Shuffle’, ‘Silly Love’, and ‘Clockwork Creep’ — a song narrated by a bomb aboard a jumbo jet. It reached No. 9 in the UK and stayed on the chart for six months. It was self-produced and engineered by Eric Stewart. Kevin Godley described the sessions as creatively uninhibited and open to anything.
First Man into Space (1959) is a British science fiction-horror film directed by Robert Day, following a US Navy pilot who returns from extreme altitude encrusted in meteoric dust and transformed into a blood-dependent creature. Built on a tight budget and grounded in procedural realism, it prioritises physiological logic over myth or metaphor, using restrained performances, functional cinematography, and a lean narrative structure to sustain its central conceit. Though limited by its means, it delivers a coherent, atmospheric, and quietly tragic vision of spaceflight as irreversible bodily violation.
A 1930 American war film directed by Howard Hughes, James Whale, and Edmund Goulding, Hell’s Angels follows two British brothers in the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War. Originally shot silent, it was converted to sound mid-production, replacing lead actress Greta Nissen with Jean Harlow. Its aerial combat sequences — filmed with over 130 pilots, multiple fatalities, and Hughes’s own crash — remain landmark achievements in early sound and stunt coordination. Though narratively uneven and thematically thin, its technical ambition and material history make it a singular artifact of Hollywood’s transitional decade.
Stanley Kramer’s 1963 epic comedy deploys Ultra Panavision 70 and an all-star cast to stage a non-stop, 161-minute chase for buried cash across Southern California. Built on stunts, not story, it privileges physical precision and wide-screen choreography over character or theme — succeeding as industrial spectacle, not narrative comedy.
Howard Hawks’ 1939 drama follows Geoff Carter, manager of a perilous South American air freight operation, as he balances a government contract deadline against the lives of his pilots. Starring Cary Grant and Jean Arthur, it builds its world through procedural clarity, not psychology — valuing competence over confession, restraint over revelation. Joseph Walker’s cinematography, Dimitri Tiomkin’s score and Viola Lawrence’s editing sustain a single, unwavering tone: fatalism as honour, risk as routine.
So Can I (1975) is a seventeen-minute Iranian short by Abbas Kiarostami, following two boys watching an educational cartoon. One boy repeatedly asserts 'So can I' in response to animals’ actions—until birds fly across the screen, and he falls silent. The film ends with an aeroplane circling overhead. Made for Kanun, it treats childhood cognition with formal rigour: no narration, no adult presence, no resolution—only repetition, silence, and a single, resonant visual rupture.
Albert Lamorisse’s 1960 film Stowaway in the Sky blends documentary footage and staged flight to follow a ten-year-old boy drifting over France in his grandfather’s balloon. Shot in Eastman Color and Dyaliscope, it privileges observation over narrative, using silence, wide shots and unhurried editing to recast landscape as texture and altitude as perspective. Maurice Fellous’s cinematography and Jean Prodromidès’s score sustain its gentle, airborne logic — one that values wonder without condescension, and drift without destination.
Robert Aldrich’s 1965 disaster drama follows a group of men stranded in the Sahara after a cargo plane crash. With no rescue expected, a German engineer proposes building a new aircraft from the wreckage. What follows is a rigorous, unsentimental depiction of collective labour, rationed hope, and the fragile consensus required to turn desperation into flight.
Philip Kaufman’s 1983 film adapts Tom Wolfe’s book into a sprawling, visually precise account of American test pilots and Mercury astronauts. Shot across California locations including Edwards Air Force Base and Hamilton AFB, it contrasts Chuck Yeager’s solitary mastery with the seven astronauts’ managed ascent into orbit. Caleb Deschanel’s cinematography, Bill Conti’s score, and Glenn Farr’s editing sustain its 184-minute runtime through texture and rhythm rather than plot velocity. Though criticised for historical compressions — particularly around Gus Grissom — it endures as a meditation on visibility, endurance, and the cost of turning courage into spectacle.
From July to October 1940 the Royal Air Force and Germany's Luftwaffe fought for control of the skies over southern Britain, a contest Hitler had made a precondition for any invasion. Britain's radar-linked defence system, built under Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding, let a numerically stretched Fighter Command meet each wave of attacks; Germany's shift in September to bombing cities came after it failed to destroy that defence outright. The invasion, Operation Sea Lion, was postponed and then abandoned. Dowding himself was removed from command within weeks of the victory, a decision historians still argue over.
The German passenger airship Hindenburg caught fire while landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey, on 6 May 1937, killing 36 people in under a minute despite the Zeppelin Company's previously spotless safety record across 1.6 million kilometres of flight. German and American investigations reached different emphases on the ignition cause, static electricity remains the most widely accepted explanation, and the extensive newsreel and radio coverage of the disaster effectively ended commercial passenger airship travel within months.
Apollo 11 landed on the Moon on 20 July 1969, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin spending about two and a half hours outside the lunar module while Michael Collins orbited above in the command module. The landing itself required Armstrong to take manual control past a boulder field with only seconds of propellant remaining, and the mission was watched live by hundreds of millions of people, a scale of audience unmatched at the time.
From the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s, the United States and the Soviet Union competed to demonstrate technological supremacy through spaceflight, a rivalry that produced Sputnik, Yuri Gagarin's orbital flight, and the Apollo moon landings. The Soviets pursued a strategy of dramatic firsts announced only after success, while the Americans broadcast their efforts publicly, including their failures, and the competition faded rather than concluded, ending in a joint mission rather than a declared victory.
A terminal built for Trans World Airlines at JFK Airport in 1962. Designed by Eero Saarinen and Associates with Charles J. Parise. Its wing-shaped thin-shell concrete roof uses catenary curves and rests on four Y-shaped piers. Developed through physical modelling—not sketching—after empirical study of passenger movement. Adapted into the TWA Hotel in 2019, retaining Saarinen’s furniture.
Scramble (1981) is Konami’s first major arcade hit — a horizontally scrolling shooter where the player pilots a jet across six seamless terrain sections, using separate buttons for forward fire and bombs while managing a depleting fuel supply replenished only by destroying fuel tanks. Success requires surviving, defeating enemies, and destroying a base in the final section to trigger a mission-complete flag — then repeating the cycle at increased difficulty.
Zaxxon is a 1982 Sega arcade shooter that pioneered isometric projection to create a pseudo-3D environment where altitude management—indicated by shadow and altimeter—is central to navigating fortress walls and obstacles. Movement is constrained to constant forward speed with vertical control only via joystick, requiring players to learn and internalise altitude-based spatial reasoning. Its design demanded new interface cues (joystick illustrations) due to unfamiliar control logic.
Rolls-Royce Limited was not a luxury brand first — it was an engineering firm that built cars to prove its method, then switched to aero-engines to survive war, then bet its existence on jet engines. Its collapse in 1971 was not a failure of ambition or invention. It was a failure of cost control in a single programme.
ANA is Japan’s largest airline, rooted in a 1952 helicopter-and-aeroplane transport company. It launched Japan’s first postwar scheduled flight by a Japanese pilot in December 1953, added passenger service on the Osaka–Tokyo route in February 1954, and scaled into a dominant domestic carrier. Its growth reflects regulatory privilege more than competitive differentiation. No financials, pricing, or cost structure are disclosed in the source material.
Saab AB is a Swedish aerospace and defence company founded in 1937 by AB Bofors to build aircraft domestically. It merged with ASJA in 1940, developed its first aircraft — the SAAB 17 — which flew on 1940-05-18, began automobile production in 1947, merged with Scania-Vabis in 1968, changed its name to Saab AB in May 1965, and was re-established as an independent entity in 1995 after de-merger.
Singapore Airlines is a state-aligned, operationally diversified aviation group—not a founder-led startup. Its value lies in infrastructure leverage, not narrative.
Emirates is a state-owned UAE flag carrier founded in 1985 after Gulf Air reduced Dubai services. It operates over 3,600 weekly flights from Dubai International Airport’s Terminal 3, serves 150+ cities across six continents, and ranks third globally by passenger volume and second by freight volume. Its ownership lies with Dubai’s Investment Corporation of Dubai, and its cargo arm is Emirates SkyCargo. It is not part of any global airline alliance.
The DJI Phantom series launched in 2013 as an entry-level, GPS-stabilised quadcopter. It pioneered the consumer aerial photography drone form factor. It was DJI’s first fully assembled drone. It was priced at $629. It achieved 15 minutes of flight time. It supported optional GoPro mounting. It used a GPS-enabled NAZA-M autopilot. The Phantom 2 Vision introduced the first built-in camera in the series. The line was discontinued after the Phantom 4.
The Buick Y-Job is the first concept car — a 1938 Buick convertible built to test design ideas, not sell units. Designed by Harley Earl, it used a Buick Super chassis and featured power-operated hidden headlamps, electric windows, and styling cues that defined Buick for decades. It became Earl’s daily driver after public debut. It changed how mass manufacturers develop cars: by treating design as a public-facing experiment.
A one-off 1979 concept built to show off Newport Pagnell—and chase a title it never claimed.
The Chrysler Turbine Car was an experimental two-door hardtop coupe designed by Elwood Engel and built by Chrysler with bodywork by Carrozzeria Ghia. It used the A-831 turbine engine, was produced in 55 units between 1963 and 1964, and featured power brakes, power steering, and a TorqueFlite transmission. All were finished in 'turbine bronze' paint.
The Firebird I is a 1953 GM concept car designed by Harley Earl. It was the first gas turbine-powered car tested in the United States. It features a single-seat cockpit under a bubble canopy, a bullet-shaped fiberglass fuselage, short wings, and a vertical tail fin. It was built for the 1953 Motorama show. GM never intended it for production.
The Subaru Alcyone SVX is a 1991 two-door, front-engine coupé styled by Giorgetto Giugiaro. It was Subaru’s first luxury/performance vehicle. It featured an aircraft-inspired 'window-within-a-window' side-glass configuration. It used only the 3.3-litre flat-six EG33 engine and an automatic transmission. All-wheel drive was offered via ACT-4 or VTD systems — or front-wheel drive in some markets. Production ran from 1991 to 1996.
The Tatra 87 is a Czechoslovak-built, rear-engine, streamlined saloon produced from 1936 to 1950. Designed by Hans Ledwinka, Erich Ledwinka, and Erich Übelacker. Based on Paul Jaray’s aerodynamic proposals.
Toyota Sports 800 (1965) — A lightweight, targa-top roadster built around an air-cooled 800 cc boxer engine. Designed for agility and aerodynamic efficiency, not speed or comfort. Sold exclusively in Japan via Toyota Publica Stores. Production: 1965–1969. Units built: ~3,131.
The Tucker 48 is a saloon defined by unmet promise and tangible innovation. It established safety and driver-centred layout as non-negotiables—before Detroit accepted them. It failed to deliver its own engine or prove its systems in volume. Its legacy is procedural, not mechanical.
