Photos & Story by Lance Phillips
This month, we will review a few photos from completely different spectrums (and eras) of the photographic world. To begin, I’ll take you to the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas, Texas within and around which I captured the sights with my old Pentax 67 medium format camera.
I have presented a few photos taken with the Pentax 67 in these pages before; Oshkosh last year comes to mind immediately. If you can imagine a normal 70s-80s era SLR, like a Nikon F3 or Canon AE-1 and double what your mind’s eye sees, that’s basically what a Pentax 67 looks and feels like–a giant SLR.
A 35 mm camera (like the aforementioned Nikon and Canon) uses a 24 mm by 36 mm negative to achieve a 2:3 image ratio. The 35 mm camera was first envisioned by Oskar Barnack in 1903 and then produced by Leica (Leitz Camera in Wetzlar, Germany) in 1913. Leica still makes and sells the world’s best 35 mm film cameras and lenses in 2024. It also manufactures and sells amazing digital cameras. The readers of Twin & Turbine will see some of my Leica film images in later issues this year.
Early large format cameras, introduced in the mid-1800s, used huge 4-inch by 5-inch or 8-inch by 10-inch sheet-film negatives. The first production model called the Reisekamera, ironically translated as a travel camera, was a big, cumbersome box with bellows and lens apparatus. But it took incredible photos. Large-format cameras are still used and in production today.
The first medium format camera, the Brownie, was designed and produced by Kodak in 1901. Kodak, the Brownie, and medium format film (designated 120 film) brought photography to the masses because of its portability compared to large format cameras. 120 film rolls can produce various size negatives, the most popular being 6 cm x 6 cm and 6 cm x 7 cm (used by my Pentax), along with others like 6 cm x 9 cm. Different camera designs can stretch one side of the negative, but the width is always 6 cm.
That’s all the nerdy camera stuff you get for now. Let’s see some unique airplanes.
To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place…
Elliott Erwitt
As one walks around the outside of the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas, they’ll first come across an example of Learjet’s 24D model from 1973. Serial number 281 logged a total of 7,330 airframe hours and 8,707 landings before coming to FoFM.
There are lots of airplanes inside the museum, but of course, I am drawn to the weird ones first. According to the museum’s website:
The Chance Vought V-173 “Flying Pancake” is a one-of-a-kind aircraft that dates back to WWII. Designer Charles H. Zimmerman theorized that aircraft could fly at very slow speeds with an extremely low-aspect-ratio wing design. Zimmerman minimized drag by placing large-diameter propellers at the end of the circular airfoil wingtips, maintaining a uniform flow of air over the flat pancake’s single wing.
Even though the proof-of-concept Chance Vought V-173 “Flying Pancake” exhibited unusual flight characteristics, the V-173 could almost hover, survived forced landings including a nose-over, and could be piloted effectively. Charles Lindbergh, the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, piloted the V-173 “Flying Pancake” on several occasions and found it very responsive. The V-173 “Flying Pancake” is believed to be responsible for several UFO sightings by the general public in the early 1940s.
Hanging appropriately from the center ceiling is a full-scale replica of the Wright brothers’ Wright Flyer (at left). I don’t want to spoil anyone’s visit to Dallas to see the rest of the museum first-hand, so I’ll stop there. But before we depart the pattern, I’d like to bring you a photo from reader, Steven Busch (opposite page). He caught a beautiful Midwest sunset on his iPhone and sent it in. If you have a great photo that you think others will enjoy, send it my way.
