March 1937

Volume 5 Number 12 (60 of 88)

This issue of Popular Flying magazine features NO “Biggles” story. The last “Biggles” story was published in the May 1934 issue

Contents

This issue runs from page 605 to page 656 (52 pages)

Page 606 – Contents Page

(The contents page is by an advert for Wills’s Gold Flake)

Page 608 – Palestine Parade – A photograph of three Vickers “Valencias” over Cairo

Page 609 – The Editor’s Cockpit – W. E. Johns

(Not subtitled – Johns comments about the new “Air Registration Board” and talks about how things falling off planes never hit people.

“I’ve been a bomber so I know how hard it is”. The Editorial is unusually short, taking up only one page)

Page 610 – Wings O’er the Islands – Joanna Railton

Page 615 – With the Night Mail over the South Atlantic – Jean Mermoz

(This article is about the French air mail service from Paris to South America – some 8,000 miles

– it continues on Page 642 where a black lined box informs the reader

“Since this article was written we very much regret to record that the author was lost in unknown circumstances whilst flying over the South Atlantic”)

Page 617 – Memories of 63 Squadron, R.F.C. – H. Holden

(“One has to salute the lads who went through that training, totalling perhaps less than 20 hours solo, before they put up their wings and were immediately sent to France. I have known an officer put up his wings on Wednesday, leave for Air Ministry on the night mail from Newcastle-on-Tyne on Friday, and be reported as a casualty in France before Monday morning”)

Page 619 – Modern Aircraft – The Miles Whitney Straight Monoplane

Page 620 – McCudden – Scout Pilot – Major McCudden’s exploits with No. 56 Squadron – John C. Hook

(An account of McCudden’s career with 56 Squadron from August 1917 until he was posted home in February 1918.

He was later to die in an air crash on returning to France to take command of No. 60 Squadron)

Page 623 – Shots from the Air Films

(Three stills from the films “The Sky Parade” and “The Devil’s Squadron”)

Page 624 – The Day’s Work – G. H. Glasspoole

(“The story of a Sopwith Camel of 80 Squadron and a brigade of German light artillery”)

Page 626 – Teaching Atlantic Pilots – Don Glassman

Page 628 – Flying Wires – News in Brief from Far and Near

(One item of news is “The explosive departments of Woolwich Arsenal are to be moved.

The new arsenals will be near Irvine, Ayrshire, Bridgend, Glamorgan, Chorley, Lancashire and Hereford”)

Pages 630 and 631 – The Centre Pages – “Thunder Over Madrid” – An illustration by Frank L. Westley

Page 632 – Airports Association Conference and Equipment Exhibition 1937

(“Among those present ……………” was a stand for Popular Flying Magazine!)

Page 633 – Design, Performance, Estimation and Flight Testing of Petrol ‘Planes – Part 2 – Performance Estimation

Page 635 – Air Bandits of To-Morrow – Gordon Harker

(“The well-known Actor-Criminologist” –

Interestingly, we find out in the editorial from the May 1937 issue that this article was not by Gordon Harker at all – His “agent” sold W. E. Johns the story and then Gordon Harker rang Johns to say he knew nothing about this. The cheque for this article was eventually given to the Actor’s Orphanage)

Page 636 – Tasmania and the Air – by A Tasmanian Correspondent

Page 637 – You May Laugh!

Page 638 – Shot Down “First Time Over” – Impressions in the Front Seat of an F.E.2.B – J. A. V. Boddy

(An observers account of being shot down only 10 days after joining “Incidently, the spent bullet had so altered

my face that my Flight Commander, to whom I at once reported, thought I was yet another new observer”)

Page 641 - Slipstream

Page 646 – Aviation Bookshelf

(“Ace of the Black Cross” by Ernst Udet is reviewed)

Page 648 – Dunlop - An Advert for the Dunlop Rubber Company Limited

(A rather striking and eye-catching advert)

Page 656 – The Buyers’ Log

Inside Back Cover – “Flying Adventures” – an advert by John Hamilton Limited publishers for four of their books (none by W.E. Johns)

Click here to see a much larger picture of the cover artwork – the artist is Howard Leigh

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