International Air Power Review contents (plus whatever happened to Aerospace Publishing?)

[CJGibson]

This might be useful for researchers looking for items in the excellent - and greatly missed - International Air Power Review.

Chris

 

[sferrin]

I wish they and World Air Power Journal / Classic Wings had not gone out of business. Have many issues but not nearly as many as I'd like.

 

[FighterJock]

I wish they and World Air Power Journal / Classic Wings had not gone out of business. Have many issues but not nearly as many as I'd like.

I used to get World Air Power Journal for years, I did not like it when they went out of business, What was the reason that they went under?

 

[sferrin]

I wish they and World Air Power Journal / Classic Wings had not gone out of business. Have many issues but not nearly as many as I'd like.

I used to get World Air Power Journal for years, I did not like it when they went out of business, What was the reason that they went under?

No idea. They had great books too. Gulf Air War Debrief is one of my favorite.

 

[gatoraptor]

I wish they and World Air Power Journal / Classic Wings had not gone out of business. Have many issues but not nearly as many as I'd like.

I used to get World Air Power Journal for years, I did not like it when they went out of business, What was the reason that they went under?

No idea. They had great books too. Gulf Air War Debrief is one of my favorite.

Their companion volumes on the Vietnam air war and the F-14 Tomcat were both super as well.

 

[FighterJock]

I wish they and World Air Power Journal / Classic Wings had not gone out of business. Have many issues but not nearly as many as I'd like.

I used to get World Air Power Journal for years, I did not like it when they went out of business, What was the reason that they went under?

No idea. They had great books too. Gulf Air War Debrief is one of my favorite.

I had Gulf War Debrief as well sferrin, it was well read.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Strangely enough the whole story of what happened to Aerospace Publishing is online:

Aerospace Publishing Ltd & Anor v Thames Water Utilities Ltd | [2007] CILL 2429 | England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) | Judgment | Law | CaseMine

Get free access to the complete judgment in Aerospace Publishing Ltd & Anor v Thames Water Utilities Ltd on CaseMine.

www.casemine.com

A flood destroyed large parts of their archive, which was comprised of William Green's Pilot Press collection, W J R Taylor's collection, and much more.

The majority of their income came from their partworks. Putting together these quickly and cheaply was facilitated by the use of the archive, which covered a vast amount of photos and comissioned artwork. Losing the archive destroyed their business model - they didn't have the artwork and photos and obtaining them from elsewhere was costly and slow.

WAPJ and Wings of Fame were effectively a vanity project for Mr Morse, costly and time-consuming to put together, and not very profitable.

Incidentally, I can attest to the awesomeness of their archive, having worked in it for a couple of weeks back in the 1990s. Stan Morse was a nice guy too.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

As a historian I have to say - IF ONLY THEY"D OWNED A SCANNER!

 

[AeroFranz]

A flood destroyed large parts of their archive, which was comprised of William Green's Pilot Press collection, W J R Taylor's collection, and much more

 

[aim9xray]

As a historian I have to say - IF ONLY THEY"D OWNED A SCANNER!

Then you'd be saying "What - you didn't know to do backups before the server farm was flooded?!"

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

The photo collection, while extensive, is less of a loss to than the commissioned artwork, as it was partly comprised of photos obtained from company PR, trade shows and the like where there is a reasonable likelihood someone somewhere has another copy. The commissioned artwork, cutaways etc from the Pilot Press collection are kind of irreplaceable.

 

[VictorXL188]

I only came across this thread today, despite being a member for ten years.

I was an Editorial Assistant with Aerospace Publishing for five wonderful years until the company finally went under at the end of March 2012. As Overscan/Paul mentioned above the flood did impact production of any publications in the early 2000s, with the exception of small components sent to the US for IAPR, which was basically run by a husband and wife team until the tragic passing of the wife.

Getting back to my contribution, in the beginning of 2007 Stan Morse, together with Soph Moeng decided that the WAIF 2 project, as it was called in the court papers mentioned above by Overscan, was a viable project. To this end, firstly they re-employed Paul Eden, as the Editor, together with David Donald, Thomas Newdick and Christopher Chant as Editorial Contributors. Myself and another Editorial Assistant were employed in June 2007 as the Assistant Editors on the new project. To complete our team we were joined by a young lady as our Chief Designer/ DeskTop Publisher, with skills in photo and artwork manipulation.

The new title became Aircraft: The Worlds Greatest Reference Files (ATGRF). Following a few months of debate, ideas etc, the first 6 test issues were produced in 2008. Initially the first test area tried was in Scotland. This proved to be a slightly negative reaction and so a second test was ran in the West Country to similar results.

However, just prior to my employment, the company had been approached by a Polish company in regards to a version of WAIF, which was aimed at the Polish market. This began in mid 2007 and by the time of the disappointment of ATGRF, it was decided that material which had been created for the new partwork could be incorporated into the Polish WAIF. Also in 2008, test runs of both a Romanian and a Bulgarian version of WAIF were created, but these were not successful. However the call came for a Russian version of WAIF, and Stan Morse and Soph Moeng went off to Moscow to sign the deal.

Unlike the Polish version (120 issues) and the UK version of WAIF (230) the Russian variant, called Mirovaja Aviacija, became the largest version ever with over 300 issues. Although obviously in keeping with the archive that had survived/been restored, a lot of old material would be used. But new photos, artwork and articles were written, by staff, including myself and new examples of all three components commissioned. This was our main tasks throughout the next few years, together with tests of two seperate Japanese projects.

Also with the assistance of Stan's friend of many years, William Green, a new version of his Warplanes of the Third Reich, which was to be called Aircraft of the Third Reich. It was intended that the new book would cover more in depth coverage of each type than the previous edition. Also it was decided between Bill Green and Aerospace, that some effort should be made to include some of the captured types operated. As a result of the larger amount of material, it was decided that the work would be split into three volumes. As the first of these was going to press in 2009, we eagerly showed Bill, who was happy at this rework.

Our joy mere months later was tempered with the passing of this legend, who I had the privilege to meet on a couple of occasions. Nevertheless a launch gathering was held at the RAF Museum in mid 2010, attended by members of Bill's family. Volume Two was well underway, but various problems meant this was never to see the light of day, along with the third volume, which would have also included unbuilt Luftwaffe projects as discussed on this forum.

The failure of the two Japanese Projects, which had utilised much of the funding gained from the Thames Water claim, was the final nail in the coffin, and the company entered administration as at 31/03/2012. Production was allowed to be carried out for the final issues of the Russian WAIF, but these were carried out by the designer and Soph Moeng working from their home addresses.

And finally, the comment made by Overscan about scanning was correct, as far as the original archive was concerned. However, one of the projects taken on, just after I joined the company was scanning in of the revised archive, including restored, purchased and new material. In addition the large artworks which had either survived or were able to be restored were also professionally digitally photographed. This archive, Pegasus, which I personally was responsible for the naming of, as far as I know is still in existence. Hopefully this should give you a little idea of the final days of Aerospace Publishing, for whom I was proud to have played a small part for just a short while.

I attach pictures of one of issues of the first publication I worked on. This featured the fold out of one of the first artworks to be photographed. Within this briefing of the Spitfire, Merlin variants, one thing we lacked was detailed photographs of a Merlin Spitfire. These we acquired thanks to an old acquaintance of mine Tony Bianchi, who let us use the Spitfire IA which was in his care with PPS at Booker at the time. Also I include the front cover of the first Volume of Aircraft of the Third Reich. In case you wonder why it looks a little strange this is actually the test photo we used prior to the real thing being printed. Finally I attach Issue 29 of Mirovaja Aviacija. I chose this one as I was the author of the Li-2 article, as featured on the cover, as well as sourcing some new pictures for the Zero article including the one featured on the cover.

 

[Hood]

Myself and another Editorial Assistant were employed in June 2007 as the Assistant Editors on the new project. To complete our team we were joined by a young lady as our Chief Designer/ DeskTop Publisher, with skills in photo and artwork manipulation.

It is a small world indeed, I was one of the losing applicants for that position (I was a fresh-faced graduate in those days). It was a tough but enjoyable interview with Soph Moeng. I remember him showing me a commissioned painting of a Mirage 2000 that had just come in and mentioning the Polish partwork project. I vaguely remember him mentioning a possible French effort too and quizzing my knowledge of French aviation.
It's a shame that they ultimately folded, but I guess even back then partworks were in declining popularity. I still miss the Aerospace Publishing works, especially their books which collated a lot of the partwork material, they were top notch informative works of the kind you can't really get on modern military aviation today.

I wonder if Bill Green's magnum opus will ever be completed and published? Presumably the material must still exist?

 

[starviking]

This was our main tasks throughout the next few years, together with tests of two seperate Japanese projects.

Would you have any information on the Japanese projects?

 

[VictorXL188]

This was our main tasks throughout the next few years, together with tests of two seperate Japanese projects.

Would you have any information on the Japanese projects?

Well one of the projects was a rarely seen format of a magazine, with attendant cards covering certain aircraft types. This project was called 100 Years of Aircraft and was set to run for 100 issues, this magazine was developed to be something more than just another ‘encyclopaedia of aircraft', and was to feature stories and incidents from the wider world of aviation and world news covering the past 100 years; each issue exploring the events, innovations, conflicts and personalities in aviation of one calendar year. Produced for our clients in Japan, it was researched, written and designed in English and sent to Japan for translation and print. Each magazine covered articles relating to a particular year, for example 1941. Amongst the aircraft cards was one on the Kate Torpedo bomber. During my research I came across a reference in a Japanese book, which had been translated. This reference talked about the wooden box fins which were fitted in order for the Japanese torpedoes to run shallow in the waters of Pearl Harbor. Soph had never heard of this and was initially skeptical until he saw my research. We also had working with us on this project Nick Stroud, the son of the late John Stroud. Nick of course went on to found Aviation Historian with Philip Jarrett. Nick had previously worked for Aerospace Publishing in the 1990s. Of the other Japanese project, all I seem to remember was it could have been something similar to the UK project that I posted, but obviously in Japanese. One of my eternal memories of the first Japanese project was one day having a production meeting with the Japanese Publishers at 7:00 AM UK time. We were discussing some point when all of a sudden the screen started shaking. All of the people behind the lady that we were talking to, via whatever form of Zoom type thing we had then, all put on hard hats. The lady however didn't. When everything had settled, we asked her why she didn't put on hers to which she replied that it messed up her hair!! In case you wonder what had caused the rocking, it was an aftershock of the earthquake that damaged the nuclear plant in Fukushima in 2011. Sadly only six issues of the magazine were produced, as, under the poor economic climate of the time, and the fact that Japan had just suffered its worst tsunami in decades, it did not sell well enough to make its publication financially viable.
One other feature of all of the foreign issues of WAIF and the other magazines was that all articles had to be written in English with certain space, depending on the final language, for translation. In the case of WAIF Poland, for example, I remember having to make pictures smaller or even deleting them completely to allow this space. This may also involve the use of severe editing of the original text so that it was shorter than the original UK example.

 

[gatoraptor]

I really wish that the rest of "Aircraft of the Third Reich" would have been (or still could be) published. I gave Volume One only one star on Amazon, not because of the editorial content (which I said would rate about four stars) but because as an incomplete work, it's value was extremely limited.

 

[VictorXL188]

Myself and another Editorial Assistant were employed in June 2007 as the Assistant Editors on the new project. To complete our team we were joined by a young lady as our Chief Designer/ DeskTop Publisher, with skills in photo and artwork manipulation.

It is a small world indeed, I was one of the losing applicants for that position (I was a fresh-faced graduate in those days). It was a tough but enjoyable interview with Soph Moeng. I remember him showing me a commissioned painting of a Mirage 2000 that had just come in and mentioning the Polish partwork project. I vaguely remember him mentioning a possible French effort too and quizzing my knowledge of French aviation.
It's a shame that they ultimately folded, but I guess even back then partworks were in declining popularity. I still miss the Aerospace Publishing works, especially their books which collated a lot of the partwork material, they were top notch informative works of the kind you can't really get on modern military aviation today.

I wonder if Bill Green's magnum opus will ever be completed and published? Presumably the material must still exist?

Yes Hood, I have come across a few of the unsuccessful candidates over the years, although I would literally kill to get back into the field of aviation writing again. I did have an advantage in that I had already gained experience as an Aviation journalist in the 1990s. Amongst the guys I worked with at that time were Max Kingsley-Jones, who went on to write the Ian Allan bio on the Trident, and moved to Flight as their Commercial Editor in the late 1990s, and Rich Cooper. Through my time with Rich I was also introduced to Jamie Hunter, and at press conferences got to know Jon Lake and David Donald. In regards to the Bill Green opus, I am not sure what happened to the second volume, which was virtually ready when we entered administration. I do know that there is a copy of Pegasus, the archive I mentioned in my previous post, on a removable drive unit, but I cannot go into who has it obviously for legal reasons.

 

[VictorXL188]

Oh one other thing I forgot to mention. The photo archive was added to considerably in the period following the payout from Thames Water, through auction purchases. One of these was the auction of the former RLM collection from Fairoaks. Amongst our purchases was some of the original material we used in the Battle of Britain article in the first edition of the failed UK project. These included actual Luftwaffe targeting maps

 

[VictorXL188]

I really wish that the rest of "Aircraft of the Third Reich" would have been (or still could be) published. I gave Volume One only one star on Amazon, not because of the editorial content (which I said would rate about four stars) but because as an incomplete work, it's value was extremely limited.

As I mentioned in another reply, I know that a copy of the photo archive has been kept, and it would not surprise me if the same person also kept the files for Aircraft of the Third Reich Vol 2 and whatever had been completed for Vol 3