The Aviation Historian Magazine Issue 19 Zurück Ausgabe

Exactly 60 years ago, Britain’s Conservative government published “that” Defence White Paper, in which the Minister of Defence at the time, Duncan Sandys, announced a radical new direction for the nation’s air defence, to howls of fury and outrage in many quarters — manned fighters were to be replaced by missiles. In this issue, Professor Keith Hayward FRAeS examines the political and industrial fallout of the infamous document; an ill-conceived act of political recklessness, or a vital rationalisation of a failing industry? Also in this issue, we look at the deployment of the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird in the UK in 1974–90; the Luftwaffe’s extraordinary Zellendusche optically-triggered upward-firing anti-bomber cannon of World War Two; and the disastrous debut of the USAAF’s 90th Bombardment Group in the South-west Pacific theatre in late 1942. On the civil side, we look at how Norwegian airline DNL tried to establish a transatlantic route in the 1930s; what it was like to fly the Avro/Hawker Siddeley 748 for Skyways Coach-Air in the 1960s; and a macabre round-trip for a British United Airways DC-3. All this and lots more — including Hawker Hornet, Meteors in Argentina, the sideways-engined Salmson-Moineau SM-1 and WW2 Far East ferry routes — are illustrated with high-quality archive photographs and bespoke artwork.