Aeroplane Magazine Early Post War Airliners Special Issue

THE FOURTH IN THE
Aeroplane Collectors’
Archive series describes
and illustrates British early
post-war airliners, ranging from
converted military types to the
latest piston-engined aircraft.
Flying-boats are not included,
for they were the subject of
our previous publication, Great
British Flying-boats (ISBN 987-1-
907426-29-2), copies of which
are still available.
Basic details for each type
are given, with large and
interesting illustrations from
the Aeroplane and Flight
archives, supplementing these
by quality prints from other
sources. The page layout is not
in order of a type’s  rst  ight.
CUTAWAY ARTWORK
Much of this was drawn by
James (Jimmy) Clark of The
Aeroplane, whose work began
in the mid-1930s, continuing
for the next 30 years, each
drawing getting more detailed
as the aircraft became more
complex. We have also had
access to material from Flight’s
Max Millar, for which we are
grateful to Flight Global, and
we are pleased to include work
by other artists. Production
of a cutaway involved many
hours of work in factories
where engineering drawings
were examined to provide the
necessary details,  nishing
the cutaway at home or in the
studio. Their work is worthy of
detailed study and we hope
readers will  nd it of interest.
AIRLINER DESIGNS – THE
BRABAZON COMMITTEE
In 1942 Prime Minister
Winston Churchill established
a War Cabinet Committee on
Post-War Civil Air Transport,
appointing Lord Beaverbrook
as Chairman. The aim was
to encourage development
of British air services in the
post-war period and Britain
would need to build its own
airliners. American wartime
production of transport aircraft
had provided them with civil
developments such as the
Douglas DC-3 and DC-4 which
had served the USAAF as the
C-47 and C-54 and although it
could not be contemplated at
the time, the DC-3 conversions
from RAF Dakotas were in
service with UK companies for
some years post-war.