For a glimpse of what's in Annual 2 of The Aviation Historian, click/tap images below-right to view larger versions of our tasters featuring just ten of its 260 pages.

Look inside TAH Annual No 2

Coronet

1953 was a pivotal year for the RAF, representing a period of peak strength, but also post-war transition. In July it took part in the largest Nato air-defence exercise ever undertaken, named Coronet, as Vic Flintham explains

From a Whisper to a Scream

Professor Keith Hayward FRAeS describes the somewhat lively political backdrop to the development of Bristol's elegant but endlessly troubled Britannia turboprop airliner

Vane Sailing

During 1912–14 a series of ambitious trials of experimental seaplanes fitted with hydrofoils was undertaken off the Welsh coast. Robert M. Cooper, author of a forthcoming biography of inventor Sir Charles Dennistoun Burney, takes an in-depth look at the Bristol-Burney "X-planes"

A War Balloon for Cuba

Intrigued by a headline from an 1896 British newspaper, Philip Jarrett HonCRAeS investigates an enterprising, if wildly impractical, Franco-American plan to build a "war balloon" for use in the conflict between Cuba and Spain

Operation Sandstone

Guy Warner details the co-operation between Irish Army Air Corps and Royal Navy fixed-wing and rotorcraft assets to map the 4,000+ miles of rugged coastline around the island of Ireland – at that time deemed potentially vulnerable to Soviet invasion – during 1948–52

By Heracles to Basle

With the help of a delightful original brochure sent in by TAH reader John W. Jones, Nick Stroud takes us aboard Handley Page H.P.42 Heracles for the "First Escorted Tour By Air To Switzerland", organised by the Polytechnic Touring Association and Imperial Airways in May 1932

Cutting to the Chase

David Forster chronicles the development of airborne interception radar in British military aircraft during the crucial period between the Second World War and the advent of the English Electric Lightning in the late 1950s

La Vie Extraordinaire de Sébastienne Guyot

Continuing his TAH series on France's little-known aeronautical pioneers, Jean-Christophe Carbonel profiles the very full, if far too short, life of aeronautical engineer, pilot and Olympian sportswoman Sébastienne Guyot

Closer to the Sun

Concluding his three-part TAH series on the development of cabin pressurisation for civil aircraft in the USA, Edward M. Young traces the evolution of Boeing's Model 307 Stratoliner, the world's first airliner with a pressurised cabin

Swing-wing Pocket Rockets

Designer Teddy Petter's "small is beautiful" concept for military aircraft was exemplified by Folland's Gnat, but it is little-known that the diminutive fighter/trainer was used as the basis for some other highly intriguing projects, including "swing-wing" designs, as James Jackson relates

Blood Brothers

The fatal crash of Ansett-ANA Vickers Viscount VH-RMI in Queensland in September 1966 tragically brought to light potential safety issues relating to Australia's two-airline policy at the time. Dr Peter Hobbins examines the causes of the crash and its implications both politically and in terms of passenger safety

Argentina's Arrow

With the first flight of the FMA IAe.27 Pulqui in 1947, Argentina became the first nation in Latin America to design, build and fly a jet aircraft of indigenous design. Ricardo M. Lezon profiles this historic sole prototype

We Must Ship By Air!

As a postscript to his two articles on Britain's development of dedicated bulk-freighter aircraft in TAH42 and TAH43, Ralph Pegram explores the post-Second World War era and why the market for them never materialised

ADEN: Britain's Last Word in Aircraft Guns

Continuing their series on British aerial weapons, Chris Gibson and technical artist Ian Bott join forces to chart the genesis and development of the ubiquitous ADEN cannon

Africa's Leaping Lion

From the early days of Wilson Airways in Kenya to the international jet services of the post-war tri-national conglomerate, Maurice Wickstead traces the lineage and fluctuating fortunes of East African Airways

Spitfire IX: Shrike Killer?

When the Luftwaffe fielded the superb Focke-Wulf Fw 190 in 1941, the RAF countered it with an improved Spitfire – the Mk IX – which immediately put the British back on an equal footing. Or did it? Andy Saunders looks at the evidence to see if this conventional wisdom rings true

Pushing the Envelope: Trent Meteor

In March 1948 Lt-Cdr Eric "Winkle" Brown evaluated the sole Gloster Meteor powered by a pair of Trent turboprop engines; we reproduce his RAE flying report verbatim

Maritime Reconnaissance Vanguard: a Missed Opportunity?

At a time when air arms all over the world were bringing turboprop-powered maritime reconnaissance aircraft into service, why was the Vickers Vanguard not considered for the RAF? It was, explains Tony Fairbairn

Lord Brabazon on Concorde

While researching the political history of Concorde at The National Archives, Professor Keith Hayward discovered a delightfully pithy exchange of letters between an outraged Lord Brabazon and Air Minister Julian Amery in 1963–64

Pacific Peashooters

Author of a forthcoming definitive history of the US Army Air Corps' Boeing P-26 Peashooter, Bill Cahill surveys the type's 1930s career in Hawaii and the Philippines

TAH Mystery Pix

What is it? Who are they? We riffle through our file of "mystery pix" and ask if you can provide some answers

An Arabian Adventure

Andrew Thomas introduces an evocative memoir of flying with the RAF in Aden during the inter-war period, written by Air Marshal Robert Saundby in the late 1960s

Lords of the Rings

Our man in Japan, Paul Thompson, takes a look at the formation of the nation's first jet formation aerobatic display team, Blue Impulse, and its challenging but highly memorable recreation of the five coloured rings above the capital's national stadium during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics

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Look inside TAH

You can check the content of all available issues of The Aviation Historian in two ways:

1. Visit new Annual page or our Quarterly issues page, where you can see the front cover of each issue, read a one-sentence list of the most significant articles, and view/download a PDF of that issue's contents page.
2. Visit our Index page, where you can download a free PDF of our regularly-updated index to everything we've published, compiled by author, title and subject. So if you want to know where to find information about the CIA’s secret airline, or a photograph of the cockpit of a Vickers Vespa, or how stewardesses faked hot toddies for a cabinful of passengers when someone had nicked the brandy from the galley, you can zero-in on the exact TAH issue you need.