SHIRLEY SLADE photograph

Congress wouldn't let women fight on the front lines of WW2 but many performed the endless list of other crucial duties that allowed the American war machine to work. Among these was the Women's Airforce Service Pilots (or WASPs), trained female pilots who conducted vital, unglamorous work such as ferrying aircraft around the country from facto and instructing rookie pilots. One of the best known was Sally Slade, who graced a Life feature on the WASPs in 1943 that included this fantastic shot of the 22-year dragging on a cigarette between runs.

NORTHROP YB-49 photograph

 

Designed initially during World War II as the XB-35 in order to bomb mainland Japan from Hawaii before losing out to the absurdly gigantic Convair B-36, the YB-49 was basically the same aircraft but with jet power. Sadly the flying wing design was as far ahead of its' time as it looked, as the design couldn't be made stable enough with the control technology of the period and the programme was finally scrapped in 1950.

TARGET DESTROYED poster

 

A striking poster extolling the virtue of aircrew working together from the early days of war in the Pacific.

ROMANCES OF GLORIETTE newspaper strip

For much of the first third of the 20th century Nell Brinkley was the Queen of Comics. Her beautiful gals and their plucky adventures were syndicated across the covers of many of America's most popular newspapers thanks to William Randolph Hurst. Her style would mesh perfectly with the emergence of the flapper in the late 1920s, and coy aviatrix Gloriette was a prime example of the Brinkley Girl archetype. 

Aurora Russian Nuclear Powered Bomber model kit

The Red Scare was an all-ages affair and in 1959 model manufacturers Aurora devised this terrifying Soviet beast capable of obliterating entire cities in mere moments. The kit was modelled on the Myasishchev M-50 prototype. Sleep well, little Timmy...