Wing Commander Ken Wallis MBE

billyh42

billyh42

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Billy Hepburn
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360 Degree Spherical Panoramic Image of Wing Commander Ken Wallis MBE.

Ken is probably best known for building and flying his Wallis WA-116 autogyro "Little Nellie" in the James Bond film, "You Only Live Twice"!

Ken is now 96 and still flies!

As always, the image below is just for guidance and you need to click on the link below the image in this post to view the actual interactive 360 degree image!

ken_wallis_pano_01_800.jpg

http://www.8263.co.uk/sites/aviation/ken_wallis/pages/e360_ken_wallis_pano_01.html
 
Liking the 360,not sure if I spotted Little Nellie amongst that lot.....wondering if it's in the James Bond exhibition at Beaulieu :thinking:
 
Yes, "Nellie" was at Beaulieu when I was down!

However, the other WA-116 (with the missile) painted green, to Ken's right is the twin of "Little Nellie" and is the machine that Sean Connery used as "Little Nellie" for his studio shots in for "You Only Live Twice".
 
Couple of people have said the link to the image wasn't working.

I have checked and tested the link on different PC's at different locations (and countries :) ) and everything is working as it should.

There have been over 5000 website views of this image to date and as usual the link to the image has been reposted on various other sites without any apparent problems.

Anyone who claims that they cannot view the image should update their JAVA installation on their PC and try again because there are no problems at this end.

JAVA can be updated for FREE at www.java.com !
 
Brilliant! Both the guy and the photo! :)
 
Due to the death of Ken Wallis on September 1st, 2013 there have been many attempts to view the 360 degree image in the original post - nearly 3000 in the last week alone!

When the image was originally posted it was presented using an online viewer that was Java based. Unfortunately, due to knee jerk security restrictions being placed within ALL the major web browsers following a hacking attack on a major US company that allegedly utilised Java to gain access, many people cannot access the image without going through complicated procedures to allow their browsers to access the appropriate Java content.

I have now started to change all my 360 degree images across all my websites to HTML5 and Flash format. Consequently most of the older images will no longer display until they are upgraded to the new format. This means however that even Apple users will now be able to view the 360 degree images - although due to the usual iOS incompatibilities not all control buttons will be available at this time.

In the meantime a new version of the Ken Wallis image is available here:- http://tinyurl.com/kyqlypa

I have also set up a re-direct on the old link so it will now access a new version of the image on the elevation360 website! Please note that you probably still can't access the majority of the old 360 degree images unless you have the knowledge of how to remove the security restrictions on your specific browser.

All the images will be converted to the new format in due course!
 
Fantastic work. I was fortunate enough to visit him on a few occasions with an air cadet squadron I help out with. He was a truely fascinating gentlemen, I could have spent hours talking to him. His engineering accumen was awe inspiring.

He will be missed by all who have had the pleasure of his company. Not to mention seen him fly no handed over your head in his special auto-gyro.

RIP Ken Wallis, fly with the angels.
 
How amazing! Love it!! :)

I missed this thread originally and I never met Wing Commander Wallis but I grew up knowing all about him, principally because an old family friend, Bud Cohn, owned the "Wallis Rolls Royce" in California which he had purchased when Wallis was attached to the USAF in the 1950s; so of course he had taken his car with him to America!

It was a weird, customised, vintage Rolls Royce Silver Ghost, futuristically rebodied after the war using nacelles taken from Dornier bombers and the like! "Waste not, want not" was obviously one of Wing Commander Wallis' maxims and he was equally obviously quite a chap!!
 
AER_KW_11_zps8219b3c4.jpg

Ken with the prototype e360APIS aerial 360 degree camera that he was helping develop over the last couple of years.

I've just added an image gallery with some more of the shots taken that day to the aero360 website at:- http://tinyurl.com/nnxk3wj
 
Thanks for that, Billy, very interesting.
 
Obituary here.

Really broke the mould with this one, 'character' doesn't begin to describe him.
 
May I mention there's another, more detailed obituary at Ian Hancock's Official Ken Wallis site - http://kenwallisautogyro.com/

It seems that even before Billy's photo of the 360 degree camera, Ken Wallis was always interested in photography as well as aeroplanes, bombs, cars and boats! I quote:

"Also in 1942, Ken had acquired components from an early 35mm camera which employed 4cm diameter film spools and could feed un-perforated film giving a larger than standard 35mm format. Rebuilding it with a new outer body, lens and shutter, plus a coupled split-image rangefinder proved very useful but he had to tolerate the perforations in the picture from the bulk strips of the early film then available. He went on to design a 16mm cine film camera in 1945 with capacity for 100 shots through a focal plane shutter providing anything from 1,000th of a second, to time exposures without setting the shutter speed in the conventional way. It was a true "spy"camera and could be worn as a wristwatch, being only 21/2 inches long, with stunning definition for aerial or table-top close-up photography. He used it in the RAF to investigate airborne bomb hang-up problems in aircraft bomb-bays. He then built a special pin-hole camera and photographed scale models of enemy aircraft to determine the dispersion of fragments from the exploding warhead of anti-aircraft weapons.
Later, he examined larger format cameras, such as hand-held ex-Luftwaffe infinity examples, and adapted them for aerial photographic roles, including through-the-lens reflex focusing."
 
Yves Geza said:
It seems that even before Billy's photo of the 360 degree camera, Ken Wallis was always interested in photography as well as aeroplanes, bombs, cars and boats!
Click to expand...

It might not be clear in the previous post but that's the 360 degree aerial camera, the e360APIS, that I built in the photo. Ken had asked me to bring it down to show him when he first heard about it and had been advising on various aspects over the last couple of years!

I was fortunate enough to get personal demonstrations of most of Ken's gadgets and cameras. I also got to see his trophy winning racing boats that he brought back from the USA.

Ken had a load of stories of how he would "unofficially" mount cameras in RAF aircraft and drill unauthorised holes to poke lenses through. A true pioneer!

His house was a true museum and every square foot of wall space was covered by guns, parts of planes, photograaphs and other "one of a kind" memorabilia.

Hopefully his collection will be kept together and made available for future viewing.
 
Last edited:
billyh42 said:
It might not be clear in the previous post but that's the 360 degree aerial camera, the e360APIS, that I built in the photo. Ken had asked me to bring it down to show him when he first heard about it and had been advising on various aspects over the last couple of years!
Click to expand...

Ah, capiche! :D

Your site is very good and interesting too (y) I'll visit again when it has all been upgraded.
 
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