Ghost riders in the sky

I must be getting old, tired or have too much on my mind lately. A couple of posts ago I quoted from a description of a squirrel attacking a bat, which included this passage:

This is pure speculation, but it's almost as if the squirrel was seeking to maim the bat in some way. Maim it or kill it such that it couldn't fly.

And the phrase "Maim it or kill it such that it couldn't fly" slipped right under my pedantry radar - if I'd been half awake I'd have questioned whether the implied alternative - to kill a bat such that it could fly was possible outside of movies featuring undead vampire bats.

In a roundabout way this got me thinking about things which can't fly any more. Being a bit of a old aeroplane anorak, I love to see vintage aircraft doing their stuff at airshows. There are lots of old planes lovingly restored to flying condition by enthusiasts, but there are a few aviation classics which are forever consigned to that great hanger in the sky, with no surviving examples remaining. Here are a couple which are gone for ever, but which would have looked sensational in the air:

This is the Dornier Do X passenger flying boat which first flew in 1929. It could carry 100 passengers on short haul flights, or 66 long distance. It was cutting edge technology in its day, although even with 12 engines (six facing forwards and six behind in "pusher" configuration) it was underpowered and couldn't fly any higher than a puny 500 metres (1,650 feet). But it looked magnificent, a flying ocean liner in art deco silver. Only three were ever built - the great depression did a lot to end the career of this luxurious Flugschiff (flying ship). The last surviving example ended up in a museum in Berlin and was destroyed by an RAF air raid in 1943.

And here's the Handley Page HP42 airliner, first flown in 1930. Not such a cutting-edge design, its conservative biplane configuration was mocked by Anthony Fokker, who described it as an aeroplane with a built-in headwind (Fokker was a pioneer of cantilevered monoplane wings and his Fokker FVII trimotor monoplanes had been some of the most popular airliners of the 1920's). However, I think it had certain stately, if ungainly splendour and, by all accounts it was a reliable and well-liked aircraft. Eight were built, often based in Cairo to cover Imperial Airways' Indian and African routes. The service ended with the outbreak of war, when all operational HP42s were commandeered by the RAF. By the early 1940's all had been lost due either to accident, wear and tear or damage by gales.