Table of Contents
EDITOR’S LETTER
AIR CORRESPONDENCE
AFVG: “A POLITICAL PROBLEM FOR BOTH SIDES”
Professor Keith Hayward FRAeS continues his series on
the political aspects of Britain’s post-war aircraft industry
with a look at the Anglo-French Variable Geometry project
that frustrated the British — but ultimately led to Tornado
THE HUMP PIONEERS
The WW2 aerial supply line between India and China —
“The Hump” — has been covered in detail; what has not is
the establishment of the treacherous route by four very
disparate air transport specialists, half military, half civil, in
the spring of 1942. Tom Culbert sets the record straight
SWITZERLAND’S TIGER FORCE
Swiss Air Force specialist Peter Lewis chronicles the
career of the Northrop F-5 Tiger with the Schweizer
Flugwaffe, including a foldout of two of his stunning aerial
photographs of the sleek fighter over the Alps
CES HOMMES MAGNIFIQUES: LOUIS DAMBLANC
Jean-Christophe Carbonel continues his series on some
of France’s early aeronautical personalities with the work
of Louis Damblanc, inventor of the ingenious but ill-fated
Alérion twin-engined rotary-wing aircraft
WINGS OVER PERU: THE DOUGLAS 8A
Latin American aviation specialist Amaru Tincopa traces the
history of the Northrop-designed Douglas 8A in Peruvian
service, in which it saw combat in several conflicts
DIRTY SECRETS
Despite both chemical and biological warfare having been
banned by international treaty in 1925, Germany and the
Soviet Union undertook extensive secret airborne trials
with them in the inter-war years, reveals Lennart Andersson
“THE MOST IMPORTANT BRISTOL ENGINE OF
ALL TIME”
. . . Thus Bill Gunston described the ubiquitous Hercules
sleeve-valve engine. With the help of his own superb CAD
artworks, Ugo Vicenzi describes its development and how
the whole pat-head-and-rub-tummy system works
ITALY’S FORGOTTEN AIRLINES Pt 1
Airline historian Maurice Wickstead opens a new series on
the evolution of Italian commercial aviation with the early
history of the nation’s first four “grandfather” airlines —
SISA, SANA, Transadriatica and Aero Espresso Italiana
HAWK ONE
In the first half of a previously unpublished 2005 interview
with TAH’s Editor, the late Canadian flying legend Lt-Col
Fern Villeneuve AFC recalls his first decade in aviation
FROM FLYING TO SPYING Pt 2
Phil Vabre concludes the bizarre story of the Australian
Department of Civil Aviation’s espionage activities against
the Japanese in Portuguese Timor during WW2
ARMCHAIR AVIATION
LOST & FOUND
BRIEF ENCOUNTER
In 1989 corporate pilot Brian Turpin was given the opportunity to swap his more usual bizjet for a B-24 Liberator —
it was love at first sight.
OFF THE BEATEN TRACK