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“Lockheed Hudson Ink Drawing”
Day 169 of my artwork retrospective
If you’ve been following my retrospective, you will know a few things about my father, Capt. Donald McVicar, OBE, still revered by much of the aviation community as a Flying Legend, and how I finally got all his memoirs republished last year. And how I was his favorite artist, especially when he needed someone to draw or paint an airplane. All that good stuff.
Well, Dad’s been on my mind a lot more lately because we’re coming up to what would have been his 110th birthday.
This aircraft, the Lockheed Hudson, is quite the noble beast. This is the type that was flown across the vicious North Atlantic in November 1940, in the very first airborne delivery of bombers built in the U.S. for the United Kingdom to use in the war. Yes, over a year before the States entered the war because of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
This initial organization that made the astonishing and brave decision to fly badly-needed bombers across the ocean was a fascinating mixture of civilian and military from several countries, that soon became the Royal Air Force Ferry Command.
To avoid those pesky issues of violation of America’s neutrality, the Hudsons were flown from their California factory to Pembina, North Dakota, pulled the Canadian border across by horses, and…
