User:Panderoona/Frank Munger

Maxmillian Attila (Max) Millar 1890-1973 From 1929 Max worked for Autocar magazine as a technical illustrator, producing detailed cutaway drawings of new cars as they were produced. He also worked for Flight magazine in the same way, and the earliest drawing that survives dates from December 1912. During the First World War he served in the Royal Flying Corps. Whilst too old to be called up for service in World War two, he assisted the war effort by producing drawings of enemy aircraft, often with only wreckage as a reference. He retired in 1961.

Frank Munger was a technical illustrator who specialised in cutaway line drawings for Flight International magazine for more than forty years. His detailed knowledge of aircraft came from his wartime service in the RAF.

Born in Walters Ash, near High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, on the 2nd May 1920, he attended Naphill Primary School and soon discovered his passion for drawing. By the age of eleven he had learnt to dismantle and reassemble his friends and neighbours motorbike engines, and was servicing a fleet of food lorries by 1939, when the second world war broke out.

He volunteered for the RAF and was posted on a course for engine fitters in Blackpool, after which he was posted to a Vickers Wellington Squadron, and in 1941 found himself in Singapore. Knowing that invasion was imminent, he and his comrades spent time destroying anything of use to the enemy before they boarded the Empire Star just before Singapore fell in 1942. By 1944 he was working in Guadalcanal servicing Royal New Zealand Air Force Curtiss P-40 fighters, where he contracted tuberculosis and was invalided out of the RAF having lost a lung.

In January 1945 he applied for a job as a junior artist with Iliffe and Sons, near Waterloo station, London, and head artist Maximillian (Max) Millar saw his potential and employed him. His first cutaway drawing was of a Bristol Freighter, published in March 1946, and between then and his retirement in 1985, he drew over two hundred and fifty cutaway drawings, most notably for Flight International magazine.

He joined the Guild of Aviation Artists at its formation in 1971, and won several awards including - Best Watercolour, Best Oil, Best Sporting Aviation, Aviation Painting of the Year 1991, and the Flight Trophy. He was also a founding member of the Guild of Motoring Artists.

In the winter of 1998/9 Flight Internationals cutaway drawings were the subject of an exhibition at the Science Museum, London, and Franks work was featured alongside those of the other Flight artists. At the same time, the Science Museum authored an accompanying 48 page booklet entitled Beneath the Skin: a history of aviation cutaway drawings from Flight International.

After he retired he moved to West Hallam, Derbyshire, and joined the Rolls Royce Heritage Trust. He died on 24th June 2010 at the age of 90.

Arthur Bowbeer born in 1922 in Tooting, London, Arthur died on 14th October 2007 aged 85, Arthur was one of Flights most well known technical illustrators who worked for Iliffes 1941/2 and was then called up to active service during the warm where he served in the RAF as a pilot until 1946. His first cutaway was of a Gloster Meteor F8. He became head artist on Max Millars retirement. He left Iliffes in 1963 having become head artist and worked for Grampian Press until 1974, becoming editor of Ship and Boat International.

Ira Epton Born in Brothertoft, near Boston, Lincolnshire, in December 1931, Ira served an apprenticeship with H. C. Richmonds General Engineers, of Boston before joining the Royal Navy in 1946. After nine years of service on the HMS Newcastle, HMS Glasgow and HMS Vanguard, he knew he wanted to be an artist and enrolled at Portsmouth College of Art, whilst based there. He moved south to Surrey to work for Iliffe and Sons in London in April, 1957, and worked on various magazines as a technical illustrator, such as Farmer and Stockbreeder, Farm Machinery, Mechanical Handling, Motor Transport, Bus and Coach, Autocar, Yachting World, Motor Cycle, Motor Cyle and Cycle Trader, Nursing Mirror, Fishkeeping, Cage Birds, Aeroplane Monthly, and Air Cushion Vehicles. The last ten years of his working life were spent exclusively on Flight International, and he retired on 31 March, 1991.