IN PRINT

How The Aeroplane became the world’s best-known aviation magazine — and its post-war fall

 E. A. ‘Chris’ Wren’s first contribution to The Aeroplane was this set of cartoons, ‘Identification made easy —a caricaturist’s memories of the prominent characteristics of some popular aeroplanes’, published in the 22 June 1933 edition.

Grey was well connected in the aircraft business. As editor of Th e Aeroplane he got to know all of the pioneers. One particularly strong friendship was that with Frederick Handley Page, who himself was at that time extremely influential.

There is little doubt that one of Grey’s most important impacts on British military aviation came very early on in his career during the Great War. The Royal Navy had long had its own shipyards, but in the 1800s it began to switch to using commercial companies to produce its ships while its own yards concentrated on repairs. It took the same course with regard to aircraft, and accepted designs from commercial firms for testing to conform to the needs of the Royal Naval Air Service.

While notionally a great success which resulted in the adoption of designs such as the Sopwith Pup, Triplane and Camel, the Felixstowe flying boats and the Short seaplanes, this view neglects those that failed. The outcome was a great waste of resources. On the other hand, the army had a different method. With a history of government-owned ordnance factories to produce weapons —a policy widely carried out throughout the world to keep the means of producing arms out of rebellious hands — it had established the Royal Aircraft Factory to design, test and conduct small-scale production of aircraft and balloons to meet the army’s needs.

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