Because a few of you commented on how much you enjoyed the last picture of the Corsair, I thought I’d post this one, too, by another artist. Like G. William Patten, it looks like Tom Smith Roots worked at Chance Vought from 1942 onwards, though he might be better known as a pulp western illustrator. Pretty much all I can find out about him online is at this one web site (not even a Wikipedia page for the guy). I think my favourite part about this — you know, other than the fact that the plane appears to be quickly dissolving, much to the surprise of the man piloting it, I’m sure — is the way you can see the landing gear tucked up inside the wing. Well, that or the rapidly falling Japanese Zero in the distance below. Pretty spectacular work.
***
Richard Ford Burley is a writer, library worker, and doctoral candidate in English at Boston College, where he’s studying remix culture and the processes that generate texts. In his spare time he writes about science, skepticism, and feminism (and old technical drawings of airplanes) here at This Week In Tomorrow.