Happy New Year!

A year (and a gazillion maiden flights of new Chinese aircraft types) has passed.

2025 was a bugger for many, but it also had some cool moments in the world of aviation. Experimental aircraft are weird again, which is wonderful. Three engines is fashionable. Which is pleasingly mental. After years of aircraft looking similar and more or less F-35-esque, a new era of wild X-planes and oddities across all categories is upon us, and it is pleasingly ’50s in aesthetic. I wish you all a lovely 2026 full of optimism and giggles (though please don’t do that horrible snorting laugh you do).

As ever, I thank you for making this mad effort worthwhile, your kind words, fascinating insights and unbridled monomania make this a joy. I’m tapping away until 2 AM most days to give you great slabs of aviation news, history, interviews and general silliness. I’ve been low-profile in communication on the book, as much depended on factors beyond my control, which I’ll explain. I tried to avoid vague updates (though there will be some vagueries in this post and the use of the opaque word ‘soon’). Ok, let’s see what’s going on behind the rusty hangar door at the Hush-House…

This site

This site is being revamped! As you probably know, a lot is happening on the Hush-Kit Substack (do subscribe if you haven’t yet), and I’m planning for this site (hushkit.net) to get just as busy soon. It will have a fresh lick of paint and a hearty series of upgrades. You will be smothered in a ton of new articles here soon.

Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes Vol 2

I will be contacting supporters of The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes Vol 2 soon with an update. Please do not contact me directly via the comments section or social channels. I would love to respond to everyone individually, but replying to a high volume of messages across multiple platforms is impossible and will slow the project (this is essentially a one-man operation). A huge amount of work is taking place to get the next Hush-Kit book out, and you will be contacted directly at the next stage. I’ve kept updates to a minimum because I don’t want to overpromise and would rather wait until I can provide concrete information (do keep an eye on old e-mail accounts if you have recently changed, I’ll put Hush-Kit in the subject title if you wish to tell your spam filter). If you did miss the last email, you have not missed anything important. I won’t bore you with the details, but know that cool stuff is happening, and you will be the first to know. What I will be doing soon is setting up a Vol 2 mailing list, as I know the lack of comms is annoying.

YouTube

Hush-Kit’s new brilliant video guy, The Wrench, and I have been working on a new YouTube video, and The Wrench is bringing slick editing skills, combined with mouthwatering historical footage. It’s very close now. So stay tuned to the YouTube channel.

Live events 2026

There will be more than this! But I’ll just stick this one down for now.

21st May 2026 Bristol Central Library 12.30-1.30pm

Joe Coles talk

How Bristol Aircraft Helped Defeat Fascism:

Forged in Bristol: Aircraft That Helped Crush Fascism

This witty, well-informed (well, I would say that) talk explores the pivotal role of Bristol Aircraft in the fight against fascism during the Second World War. From the factory floors of Bristol to the skies over Europe, Bristol’s engineers, designers, and pilots collaborated to create aircraft that would turn the tide of the conflict. We will trace the ferocious fighting of the outmatched Bristol Blenheim and the thumping thuggery of the Bristol Beaufighter, examining what made Bristol aircraft so special and their remarkable wartime exploits.

Through stories of daring missions, technical breakthroughs, and the sheer scale of wartime production, the talk highlights how a single city and its industrial ingenuity contributed to defeating tyranny. Attendees will gain insight into the engineering challenges, strategic importance, and human stories behind Bristol Aircraft, seeing how these machines were not just tools of war, but instruments of freedom.

If you can stomach the festering evil of Twitter, I’m there . Also available on BlueSky:

I can occasionally be found being terrible on Instagram too.

Yours in radial, V, inline, H and Wankel,

Hush-Kit