The Aviation Historian Magazine

Our cover subject for this issue, our 47th quarterly edition, is the prototype Short Sturgeon carrier-borne reconnaissance bomber. Along with the Westland Wyvern, it features in the second part of our series looking at Royal Aircraft Establishment flight test reports — in this case both aircraft were being assessed for their deck-landing characteristics by the great Lt-Cdr Eric “Winkle” Brown.
Also in this issue: Professor Keith Hayward’s exploration of the political backdrop to the UK’s Al-Yamamah defence sales programme to Saudi Arabia during the early 1980s. And one of the most poignant — and shocking — articles we’ve ever published is Kristen Alexander’s chronicle of the flying life and brutal death of RAAF Hampden pilot Jimmy Catanach; not yet 23 years old, but with a year of operational bomber flying already under his belt, Jimmy was one of the 50 airmen murdered by the Gestapo after tunnelling out of Stalag Luft III during the “Great Escape” in March 1944, just over 80 years ago.
Plus: Ralph Pegram opens a two-part account of a Canadian inventor’s stillborn inter-war project to create a chain of floating airports or “Seadromes” across the Atlantic; Col John W. Zink’s recollections of training to become a flying instructor on the Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk stealth attack aircraft; the USA’s helicopter airlines; Supermarine Scimitar display-flying; and much more.