The unmistakable rudder stabiliser and engine exhaust of a Lockheed SR-71A Blackbird. Sexy!

The many types of aircraft held at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC no doubt attract their fair share of aerophiles. But now even those with just a passing interest in aviation can marvel at the beauty of flight as depicted in the pages of In Plane View: Abstractions of Flight, a new collection of imagery from Carolyn Russo, the Smithsonian’s photographer. Russo’s work focuses on the details of a range of different aircraft and it’s from her re-examining of their various forms and structures that this collection of striking shapes, patterns and abstractions has been brought together.

Who’d have thought the Turbofan blade from a CFM International CFM56-2 engine (above) would exude such formal qualities, appearing for all the world like some bizarre object from a black and white film? Or that the exhaust of a North American F-86A Sabre (below) would be so satisfying to gaze upon (even if, looking at it another way, it does weirdly resemble a basking shark in mid-gulp). Global warming be damned, these things are beautiful.

In Plane View: Abstractions of Flight is published by powerHouse books at $39.95. See powerHousebooks.com

In Plane View features in the current issue of Creative Review, out now