Start 2010 With Some Awesome 'SpeedBirds' Dreamin'
Saturday, January 2, 2010 at 04:27PM 
(3 pix)
SpeedBirds.blogspot.com is one of those rare internet destinations that reaches way down deep inside of you and stirs things up… well, at least it does if you’re fascinated with great aviation designs rendered in the coolest of artistic styles. To try to explain it kinda misses the point. SpeedBirds is simply meant to be experienced visually (and, in the ‘dreamer’ part of your brain that probably hasn’t been very busy lately)
It appears the drawings are the work of a Frenchman who works in the automotive design world and goes by the moniker: Speed Merchant. The website takes a little time to figure out how to navigate it, but once you do, there are so many amazing drawings to soak up. They really feel bigger than life, and at least for me, they inspire me to think of aviation as something way bigger than just flying.
There’s also a book called SpeedBirds filled with drawings based on the Schneider Trophy Races that took place 1913 thru 1931. Those were the races that had the ultra-cool seaplanes with massive engines stuffed into the nose like the two pix here. Think about this: in 1931, the winning Supermarine S.6B set a record of 379 mph, and then shortly after was the first airplane to break 400 with a new record of 407.5 mph!
So, the book has these great drawings of the Schneider airplanes, and it then taps into several more automotive designers and adds their interpretive drawings of what Schneider racers might look like in modern times. It’s all very much the kind of super-cool stuff kids' dreams are made of : )
You can learn more about the book at SpeedBirdsBook.blogspot.com, and you can buy SpeedBirds at Amazon Canada (I wasn't able to find it listed at Amazon USA)
There aren’t very many 'dream worlds' that I’d like to live in, but I gotta say that the SpeedBirds world is definitely one of them!
Reader Comments (1)
Wonderful post... Very informational and educational as usual!
Acai Optimum