The Aviation Historian: Issue 34

EDITOR’S LETTER

AIR CORRESPONDENCE

COLLAPSE OF AN ICON
50 years ago Rolls-Royce declared bankruptcy; as one of Britain’s “jewels in the crown”, it was a profound trauma for the newly elected Conservative government. Professor Keith Hayward FRAeS examines the political background

ROVER DAVID Pt 1
Vic Flintham opens a two-part series on the genesis and development of the RAF’s close air-support role in North Africa and the Mediterranean during the Second World War, culminating in the Rover David “cab rank” system

CES HOMMES MAGNIFIQUES: D’ECQUEVILLY
Jean-Christophe Carbonel’s series on France’s “magnificent men” continues with submarine designer Raymond D’Ecquevilly’s (mercifully) brief flirtation with aviation

DECIDEDLY COSMOPOLITAN
When the United Nations despatched a peacekeeping force to the new Republic of the Congo in 1960, one of the most crucial units was the truly international C-47 Squadron; Leif Hellström chronicles its four-year career

THE SHORT TRAGIC LIFE OF THE AIRSHIP ROMA
Italian aviation historian Luigino Caliaro traces the all-too-brief life of the ill-fated semi-rigid dirigible Roma, which came to grief after arriving in the USA in early 1922

CZECHOSLOVAKIA’S CAREFULLY SERVING AIRLINE
Maurice Wickstead charts the evolution of one of Europe’s oldest and most resilient state airlines, Czechoslovakia’s ČSA, established in 1923 and still going — just — despite numerous operational and political setbacks along the way

THE PALE BLUE LINE
The Korean conflict is often thought of as a purely American affair — but, along with the valiant efforts of the Australians, some 77 RAF pilots also participated in combat over Korea, as Michael Napier explains

PERSIA’S ELEPHANTS
Babak Taghvaee reveals how Iran’s fleet of Boeing 747 transports and tankers, acquired in the mid-1970s, were used on some extraordinary low-level missions

BOAC & THE BRABAZON COMMITTEE
Following on from Professor Keith Hayward’s look at the politics of the Brabazon Committee in TAH33, Ralph Pegram explores how BOAC’s perspective differed

ON THE WINGS OF THE HANSA Pt 2
Using interviews and first-hand accounts, Albert Grandolini continues his three-part series on the flying career of Cambodian military pilot Major Su Sampong

SPECIAL DELIVERY
Nick Stroud provides some background for a set of photos showing a Pan Am DC-6 delivery in Brussels

ARMCHAIR AVIATION

LOST & FOUND

EVERY HOME SHOULD HAVE ONE . . .
Chris Gibson takes another deep dive into the archives to uncover a supremely optimistic 1957 Royal Aircraft Establishment concept for a hypersonic ramjet tip-rotorpowered VTOL personal transport. Covered in fur.

OFF THE BEATEN TRACK