Knights Without Parachutes — bert hall

The Russian Revolution in Aviation History

October 28, 2017 • bert hall • igor sikorsky • red baron

We are almost to the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution, but first we have to wait for November. The revolution was not exactly mis-named; one of the revolution's reforms was to join the Western world in using the Gregorian calendar instead of the Julian calendar, which meant skipping about two calendar weeks. But they didn't do that till 1918, so the revolution date of November 7, 1917 still counted at the time as being in October.

Bert Hall is not James Norman Hall, though both were Lafayette Escadrille pilots

December 13, 2016 • bert hall • james norman hall

Wikipedia has the wrong Hall pictured as James Norman Hall We found this out when Ewan Tallentire designed an earlier SPAD shirt, and almost had it printed before Andy Parks mentioned that oh, by the way, that wasn't James Norman Hall's face. The picture is actually of Bert Hall, who also flew for the Lafayette Escadrille, but with a less distinguished career. Distinguished or not, Bert Hall had a more distinctive-looking face, and what with the importance of visual branding on the Internet, Bert Hall's face could end up permanently attached to James Norman Hall's name. Which raises the question,...