Tag: Boeing 747

Categories
Graphic novels and comics

The Valley of the Immortals, step 1.

Enlarging the Blake and Mortimer album: La vallée des immortels tome 1
Enlarging the Blake and Mortimer album: La vallée des immortels tome 1

In February 2023, I began transferring the cover of the Blake and Mortimer album “The Valley of the Immortals – Part 1“ to a 24 x 36 inch canvas.

The photo above shows the original album sitting on top of the canvas and the work in progress. There is still a lot of work to do before the drawing and lettering are finished.

Then comes the coloring stage, to get the tones as close as possible to the original album. The cover has a lot of colors, which is not the case with many other Blake and Mortimer albums.

This particular album resonates with me for several reasons. First of all, the authors use in the scenario a Cessna C-170B type plane, which brings back memories of flying. Indeed, by a happy coincidence, in 1981 I flew across Canada in this small aircraft dating from 1952. The plane was not equipped with any air navigation instruments, except for an old compass. We were not yet in the GPS era! I published the story of this flight from St-Jean to Edmonton on my blog.

Another reason that increases my interest in the album is also related to a memory. On the cover, Mortimer is in Wan Chai District, a district I visited in 1990 during a trip to Hong Kong and the New Territories.   At that time, the Cathay Pacific Boeing B-747 used the legendary Kai Tak airport and flew the approach over a huge demonstration of more than 100,000 people commemorating the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

I will be posting more photos of “The valley of the immortals” painting over the next few months, numbering the title of each article so that those interested in the subject can find their way around.

Click on the link to my blog to read about the precedent painting: “Tintin and the Black Island “.

Categories
International airmail

Airline Pilots Special 747 Flight Committee

Airmail OACI In flight with the United Nations 1971
Airmail OACI In flight with the United Nations 1971

I got this first day cover thirty years ago. It had no real monetary value but certainly a historical value for whoever is interested in aviation and airmail history.

After multiple hijacked flights in several countries, hijacks that could easily have been avoided, the pilots got tired of the situation and decided to take matter into their own hands. With both pilots and politicians involved, the situation progressively changed.

International laws were modified and security was also increased, both at airports and in the aircrafts.

Airmail Airline Pilots Special 747 Flight Committee 1971 New-York to Montreal
Airmail Airline Pilots Special 747 Flight Committee 1971 New-York to Montreal

Postal history on aviation security

Below is a quote from the ICAO document:

“The series of skyjacking incidents, several of them desperate and dramatic, was a great and particular concern for the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA, Member of IFALPA, the largest airline pilot union in the world representing pilots from U.S. and Canadian airlines); ALPA sought an innovative step and an extraordinarily direct method to intensively lobby influential politicians from all over the world, as the fundamental problem in advancing a solution to the skyjacking problem laid in the realm of politics. A Boeing 747 sponsored by ALPA was rented from Pan Am and nearly 300 United Nations personnel flew on Saturday 6 November 1971 on a short international flight from New York to Montréal, being the home of ICAO; the aircraft was piloted by Captain Stanley L. Doepke of Pan Am. More than 30 crewmembers who had been skyjacked placed these world political leaders in a controlled and dramatic situation where they could hear their stories. All the international politicians from the UN General Assembly who accepted ALPA’s hospitality on the Montréal excursion went home vowing immediate action by their countries. A special first day cover was issued to commemorate this unique event and a medal was given to the UN Delegates. More information on this issue can be obtained by clicking on the following link: Hijacked Pilots Urge UN Action.

However, even with these two new Conventions signed in 1971, the issue on sanctions was not sufficiently addressed and a few terrorist actions early in 1972 gave rise to grave concern and threat to the safety of civil aviation; it was felt that perpetrators of such acts were not or not appropriately brought to justice. Because governments had failed to deal adequately with such hijacking, the International Federation of Airline Pilots’ Associations (IFALPA) called for a world-wide 24-hour shutdown of services by pilots on 19 June 1972. The United States pressed in the ICAO Council for rapid action to complete the work on a convention which would provide for sanctions against states that did not punish hijackers. The ICAO Council adopted on 19 June 1972 a Resolution which directed the Legal Committee to convene immediately a special Subcommittee to work on the preparation of an international convention to look at this issue of sanctions.”

Categories
Street photography

A Cathay Pacific Boeing 747 cargo and the London Eye

A Cathay Pacific Cargo Boeing 747 and the London Eye in London (2015)
A Cathay Pacific Cargo Boeing 747 and the London Eye in London (2015)

The photo above requires a very quick moment of reflection before being correctly interpreted. Most of the people who have seen the picture for the first time immediately had the feeling that the aircraft was heading toward one of the London Eye’s capsules.

The viewers referred to images that they had already seen during the 9/11 attacks, images that were printed in their memory.

The Cathay Pacific Boeing 747 cargo was inbound for the London Heathrow international airport while my family and I were waiting in line to live the London Eye experience, the Ferris wheel installed in the center of London, United Kingdom.

Instead of capturing a large scene, which would have given a far better idea of the scale of objects and eliminated any confusion, I opted for a close-up plan, leaving the viewer with the work of interpreting the photo correctly.

One of the pleasures of street photography is to find a second interpretation to what would normally be an ordinary scene.

For other street photography pictures posted on my site, click on the following link:

Street photography