The RAFVR

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The Royal Air Force and the RAF Volunteer Reserve provided some good and exciting flying in the years before the war, when keen young men could graduate from the Sopwith Snipe to the Gloster Grebe and Gamecock and then to Armstrong-Whitworth Siskin, Bristol Bulldog and Gloster Gauntlet and Gladiator, and on up to the Hawker Hart, Fury, Demon, Audax, Hardy and Hind, prior to the end of the biplane years and the arrival of the Hawker Hurricane and the Supermarine Spitfire of revered memory. If any of the pilots of those carefree pre-WW2 flying days care to recall their more exciting experiences, such as forced landings, unauthorised trips to land in unofficial places, and seen, and the cars and light aeroplanes that formed an exciting background to the aeroplanes they flew, we would be glad to hear from them.

I am optimistic in this request, because while working for the Ministry of Aircraft Production at Farnborough during the war (and also editing Motor Sport), I started a correspondence about forced landings in the London area in C. G. Grey’s celebrated weekly The Aeroplane which ran for a record period and brought reminiscences from some famous pilots. — W.B.