[lostllama]

Whilst searching for articles on early airships and such, I came across this interesting vintage film produced by Charles Urban, an early pioneer of cinematic special effects - "The Airship Destroyer" (aka "The Battle in the Clouds" or "The Aerial Torpedo"). It's an early vision of how destructive the invention of flying machines could be, and also the weaponry that could be developed against them (check out the proto-SAM near the end). Thought I'd post about this here since we have some aviation enthusiasts, and the special effects might provide some light humour.

Info and synopsis here: http://pauljamesog.blogspot.com/2007/08/airship-destroyer.html

Link to movie (in German with subtitles, not that they're really needed as it's a silent film): http://www.europafilmtreasures.eu/player.htm?ID=278

Alternative link to movie on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBAWWZ2rUGk&feature=related

Heh, the sped-up jerk-o-motion of vintage films like this always makes me laugh a little.

Overall, it paints a fairly good picture of how destructive air power came to be in the 20^th century, if you discount the use of dirigibles (although to my knowledge they were used in bombing raids during WW1).

Apparently there were two sequels, "The Aerial Anarchists" and "(Air?) Pirates of 1920", both made in 1911, but I haven't found anything viewable about those yet.

EDIT: Added an alternative link to the movie.

[Snail]

H. G. Wells wrote something about it too

[lostllama]

As did Roger Bacon, IIRC. He said something like God would never allow flying machines that could destroy cities from above to exist, because he couldn't conceive of any viable defence against them at the time (13^th century).

[Snail]

As did Roger Bacon, IIRC. He said something like God would never allow flying machines that could destroy cities from above to exist, because he couldn't conceive of any viable defence against them at the time (13^th century).

Maybe that's why he used his divine power of inspiration to invent the SAM.