The Aviation Historian Magazine Issue 19 Retour à l'édition précédente

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.