Archive
Without this magazine’s founding editor, the late Richard T. Riding, Aeroplane’s archive probably would not survive
Ben Dunnell explores The Aeroplane’s outstanding archives to cast new flight on past stories
In a very real sense, Richard T. Riding will continue to contribute to every issue of this magazine, despite his passing. Whenever we use material from the photographic archive of the original weekly The Aeroplane, the fact that we are still able to do so is down in large part to the efforts of ‘RTR’, as he saved it from likely oblivion.
The story of how Richard revived the famous Aeroplane name when he launched Aeroplane Monthly as editor has been told many times in our pages. He was a member of the editorial staff of Flight International when, in December 1972, he approached its publishing director and former editor Wg Cdr Maurice Smith DFC with — as he put it in our June 2001 issue — “the germ of an idea for an historic aviation magazine… He was most enthusiastic, and suggested I come up with a dummy issue. It was on his desk at 08.30hrs the following day.”
Flight’s then owners, IPC Business Press, were enthusiastic. “Within an alarmingly short space of tim…
