The Aviation Historian Magazine Issue 12 Back Issue

Imagine a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, but enlarged to three times the size, and powered to Mach 2·5 by twin wingtip-mounted liquid-hydrogen-fuelled engines. That’s Suntan, a little-known unbuilt project conceived by legendary designer Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson. The aircraft’s full story is just one of the articles in this issue, TAH12. Others include the Soviet “invasion” of the 1965 Paris Air Show (some said it was a demonstration of technological prowess, but actually the USSR just really needed to sell some aircraft and make some money); the story of a rare failure by the iconic Supermarine Spitfire, when it was pressed unsuitably into service as a divebomber; and accounts of cold-weather and high-altitude research. We also reveal how the island of Vis in the Adriatic Sea, a “rocky, waterless crag”, became a vital Allied emergency landing-ground during WW2; and what it was like to fly deep into the mountains of the Hindu Kush on a DC-3 route-proving flight. All these stories, and many more, are illustrated with high-quality archive photographs and bespoke artwork.