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“S.E.5 vs. Fokker D7″ by Frederick Blakeslee

Link - Posted by David on July 31, 2023 @ 6:00 am in

THIS week we have an early cover by Frederick Blakeslee for Flying Aces. Blakeslee did three covers for Flying Aces in 1930. The one below for the August issue of that year was his third and final cover for the magazine.

The Story Behind the Cover

th_FA_3008BRITISH against German—S.E.5 against Fokker—that’s the struggle depicted in this month’s cover. The S.E.5 has taken a long dive and is raking the Fokker from wing tip to cockpit. In this particular bit of action, the German was wounded in the legs, and with great difficulty escaped to his own lines.

Planes of the S.E.5 type appeared in France during the winter of 1917-1918. The German Fokker D7 was the only ship at the Front superior to the S.E.5—and our cover shows that the Fokker did not always win!

The Ships on The Cover
“S.E.5 vs Fokker D7”
Flying Aces, August 1930 by Frederick Blakeslee

“The Ace Ship” by O.B. Myers

Link - Posted by David on May 5, 2023 @ 6:00 am in

THIS week we have a story by the prolific O.B. Myer’s! Myers was a pilot himself, flying with the 147th Aero Squadron and carrying two credited victories and awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

The 77th had seven Aces in their squadron. There had never been an outfit with more than nine Aces in it. If the 77th were to have ten Aces—the whole gang would get a three-day leave in Paris, to celebrate. Billy Preston only had one victory under his belt when he was determined to be that tenth Ace by any means possible. From the August 1930 Sky Birds, it’s O.B. Myer’s “The Ace Ship!”

Billy Preston needed only one more plane to make him an ace, and the 77th needed just one more ace. But Spandau bullets carried his number—in that grim battle with the green-diamond Fokker.

For all his many published stories, O.B. Myer’s didn’t really have any series characters. The few recurring characters he did have in the pages of Dare-Devil Aces, we’ve collected into a book we like to call “The Black Sheep of Belogue: The Best of O.B. Myers” which collects the two Dynamite Pike and his band of outlaw Aces stories and the handful of Clipper Stark vs the Mongol Ace tales. If you enjoyed this story, you’ll love these stories!

“Test Flight” by Harold F. Cruickshank

Link - Posted by David on June 12, 2020 @ 6:00 am in

THIS week we have a story by another of our favorite authors—Harold F. Cruickshank! Cruickshank is popular in these parts for the thrilling exploits of The Sky Devil from the pages of Dare-Devil Aces, as well as those of The Sky Wolf in Battle Aces and The Red Eagle in Battle Birds. He wrote innumerable stories of war both on the ground and in the air.

After Captain Ted Strang, Yankee Flight Commander, is injured in a crash—he fights his way back to being able to fly again. Thinking it may be his best chance, he makes the most of a test flight in hopes of getting back in the game! From the August 1930 issue of War Aces, it’s Harold F. Cruickshank’s “Test Flight!”

They clipped his wings and sent him to the rear. When the black menace of the enemy reached out to spread it’s venom over London he knew that only the magic of his guns could prove his valor.

“Kilauea or Crash” by C.M. Miller

Link - Posted by David on April 10, 2020 @ 6:00 am in

THIS week we have a story from the pen of C.M. Miller! Miller is known to Age of Aces readers as the author behind Chinese Brady, an old war horse who’s fought in most every scrap there’s been.

This week it’s nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat thrills as young Jimmy Barton flies through falling ash and sulpheric fumes to try and to save Old Whippersnapper’s daughter from the crater’s edge of an erupting volcano! From the pages of the August 1930 issue of Wings, it’s “Kilauea or Crash!”

Crashed in the crater! Barton was trapped. But the volcano had spouted its challenge, and there was a girl to rescue . . .

“The Ceiling Ace” by Raoul Whitfield

Link - Posted by David on October 19, 2018 @ 6:00 am in

THIS week we have a story by Raoul Whitfield! Whitfield is primarily known for his hardboiled crime fiction published in the pages of Black Mask, but he was equally adept at lighter fair that might run in the pages of Breezy Stories. We’ve posted a few of his Buck Kent stories from Air Trails. While the Buck Kent stories were contemporary (1930’s), “The Ceiling Ace” from the August 1930 issue of War Aces is set in The Great War.

Every time the ships of the black cross ripped their lead at him he ran to the ceiling. They called him yellow, but that day when the heavens shrieked at man-made fury he held the fate of the squadron on his wings.

“The Roving Squadron” by Robert Sidney Bowen

Link - Posted by Bill on October 14, 2009 @ 11:03 pm in

More planes shot down than in any other unit—more men gone west—that was the record of Eighty Squadron. And the first job they handed young Watson was a tough one—to be carried out “no matter what the cost.”

“Isle of Lost Ships” by Donald E. Keyhoe

Link - Posted by Bill on March 6, 2009 @ 5:06 pm in

Gil Tracy and Porky Baines, test pilots for Transatlantic Airways, are caught right in the middle when pirates set their sights on the company’s trans-ocean planes. The two adventurers must fight their way from New York to the mythical Sargasso Sea.