This edited article about the Graf Zeppelin originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 705 published on 19 July 1975.

The Graf Zeppelin by Alberto Salinas

Mountains to the left, mountains to the right and, far worse, mountains straight ahead. They surrounded a twisting valley in eastern Siberia through which Dr. Hugo Eckener was piloting his huge airship, the Graf Zeppelin. The jagged peaks were the Stanovoi mountains, and the pass below the airship, now forcing it to the limit of its altitude, was over 1,500 metres high. The winding canyon grew narrower. While the passengers in their luxurious lounge felt that they could have leaned out to touch the rocks, the crew knew that any sudden gust of wind could blow them to certain destruction on the mountains.

Then they saw the summit of the pass ahead, but still above them. Time seemed to stand still as Eckener squeezed a few more metres out of the silver Zeppelin until, with only a metre or so to spare, they were over the peak. Before them lay the welcoming Sea of Okhotsk, sparkling in the sunlight.

The historic flight had begun on August 8, 1929, from Lakehurst, just south of New York. From there the huge airship, named after its inventor, Count Zeppelin, had travelled across the Atlantic to Germany and thence across Europe to Russia.

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This edited article about aviation history originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 704 published on 12 July 1975.

Vickers Vimy, Sopwith Atlantic, Martinsyde Raymor and Handley Page V1500 (clockwise from top left) by Wilf Hardy

The Americans considered that they had a good chance of beating all comers in the Atlantic air race. They had four modern Curtiss flying-boats and a skilled group of aviators. Then came the dreaded cry of “Fire!” and one of the flying-boats (NC-2) was completely destroyed. The Americans had barely recovered from this set back when a mechanic had his hand amputated by a propeller. Newspaper reporters began to speak darkly about a “jinx” which was hovering over the whole enterprise. But these happenings were going to be only the beginning of a long chain of catastrophes which were to plague the American team right from the beginning of their trans-Atlantic project.

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This edited article about the Duchess of Bedford originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 703 published on 5 July 1975.

A picture history of Woburn Abbey, home of the Duke and Duchess of Bedford, showing the flying Duchess, (bottom, right of centre)

Supposing your grandmother, or the grandmother of one of your friends, suddenly announced that she was going to learn to fly.

Think of the surprise and the raised eyebrows, and the exclamations of “Grandma, don’t be so silly” there would be. Much as we take airplanes for granted nowadays very few of us, let alone elderly ladies, ever learn to be pilots.

So you can imagine what a fuss there was nearly fifty years ago when, at the age of sixty, the Duchess of Bedford, grandmother of the present Duke of Bedford, took up flying. And the even greater fuss there was some years later when she took off in her de Havilland Gypsy plane one day, disappeared, and was never seen again.

Back in the 1920s, airplanes were not the smooth-travelling, streamlined affairs that they are today. Flying them was still an adventure. It was the age of pilots who set off across the world in tiny planes with cans of extra petrol stacked behind them, and little more than hope in their hearts and determination in their minds, to guarantee that they would land safely somewhere on the other side – in India, in Australia, in America.

It was the age of the pioneers and the trailblazers. Colonel Lindbergh became one of the world’s heroes by making the first solo flight across the Atlantic from New York to Paris in 1927; Amy Johnson was the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia in 1930.

Flights like these helped to pave the way for the airliners of the future. The men and women who made them were dedicated to flying, to proving that there was no part of the world which could not be reached by air.

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This edited article about airmail in wartime originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 703 published on 5 July 1975.

French balloonists defied the Prussian blockade and delivered airmail during the Siege of Paris by Pat Nicolle

Parisians besieged in their city for 142 days by the Prussians from 1870 to 1871 were not denied contact with the outside world. They enjoyed the first airmail in the history of flight – by balloon.

The first flight out of Paris was made by Jules Durouf, a professional balloonist. He took off with his leaky old balloon, Le Neptune, at 11 a.m. on 23rd September, 1870, and sailed high over the Prussain lines at 1,800 metres. With him he carried mail from people in the besieged city to their friends outside.

Shells whined through the air around him when the Prussians opened fire with a special mobile gun built by the arms firm of Krupp. This was the first known anti-aircraft gun in history.

The shells missed Durouf, who replied by showering the Prussians with visiting cards that advertised his services as a balloonist.

A few letters had earlier been lifted out of the French fortress town of Metz, which was besieged in 1870. But these went by unmanned balloon and most were shot down by German sharpshooters.

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This edited article about aerial warfare originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 702 published on 28 June 1975.

A Voisin downs a German Aviatik and becomes the first winner of an aerial dogfight, by Wilf Hardy

It’s hard to say who first fired a gun from an aeroplane, who was the first to hit anything, or who was the first to try shooting down an enemy plane with a machine-gun.

Certainly all the infant air forces involved in that first year of the 1914-1918 War were experimenting around the same time. Their main difficulty lay in the planes themselves. These just weren’t powerful enough to be converted into real fighting machines.

Pilots had been taking pot-shots at each other for some time. The first such duel among the clouds must have been over Neco in Mexico in 1913. There two American pilots, one flying for the Mexican Government, the other for a rebel General, exchanged a dozen or so pistol shots – without hitting anything.

The Great War had been raging for only a few weeks when, on August 25th, 1914, a British crew forced down a German Taube near Le Quesnoy by potting at it with a rifle.

October 6th that year saw the French chalk up their first victory when the crew of a Voisin shot down a German Aviatik – then landed to collect the enemy pilot’s helmet as proof of their success!

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This edited article about warplanes originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 701 published on 21 June 1975.

Lt Gavotti dropped small bombs from his plane as the Turks took pot shots at him (main picture); in 1794 the French used balloons for military observation of the Dutch (far left). Pictures by Wilf Hardy

On the waterfront of Tripoli harbour in Libya, Arab labourers sweated under the stern eyes of their new masters, the Italians.

Strange weapons of war were being unloaded from the Italian supply ship. These were the conqueror’s aeroplane flotilla – two Bleriot X1s, two Nieuport monoplanes, two Henri Farman biplanes and two Etrich Taubes.

It looked a formidable armada just to seize a desert coast from the ailing Ottoman Empire. But, helped by ferocious Senussi Arab tribesmen from the Libyan desert and volunteers on unofficial leave from the Egyptian Army, the tiny Ottoman Turkish garrisons of Libya had retreated to oases deep in the Sahara Desert from where they harried the invaders and refused all demands to surrender.

In reply the Italians threw in all the machinery of 20th-century war, including their aeroplane flotilla.

A few weeks after the Italians landed, on October 23, 1911. Captain Carlo Piazza had the distinction of making the first military reconnaissance flight in an aeroplane. Before long he had also made the first sea reconnaissance, the first photographic reconnaissance and the first night reconnaissance.

It was one of Captain Piazza’s junior officers, Second Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti, who had the dubious distinction of first raining death from the skies.

On November 1st, 1911, Lt. Gavotti took off in his Taube. With him he carried four tiny picric-acid bombs.

The Turks were used to the reconnaissance planes and were not particularly concerned as the Taube approached. This time, however, it was different. Holding the control stick between his knees, Gavotti screwed a detonator into the bomb and tossed it overboard. Three times he repeated the operation.

The air had now become an arena of war.

This edited article about the Oxford and Cambridge Air Race originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 701 published on 21 June 1975.

All the Oxbridge pilots had flown with the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War. Picture by Wilf Hardy

As they sat in their studies at Oxford or Cambridge working for their degrees, young men who had flown against the enemy in the First World War had a nagging ambition to get back into the air again. Only a few years before, they had been buzzing among the clouds in their struts-and-wires machines, battling with the German aces like Baron Manfred von Richthofen and his Jagdgeschwader fighter squadron.

To return to their universities after excitement like this was a big contrast for the former pilots. What was needed was something to keep alive their adventurous spirit. Of course, there was the Oxford and Cambridge boat race. Then one of the students, a former test pilot named A. R. Boeree, who had gone back to Oxford after the war, had a thrilling idea for an Oxford and Cambridge air race. Men in both universities, who had flown S.E.5.A machines in the war, swamped the organisers with their applications to take part.

Finally, each university picked a team of six pilots, three of whom would fly in the race, the others being held in reserve. Each of them had more than a thousand flying hours behind him.

The Royal Aero Club provided the money to hire eight S E.5.A machines. These had been built just before the end of the war and had 220 hp Wolseley-Viper engines. They were to be flown over a 129 mile course from an aerodrome at Hendon, near London, making three laps of the circuit. Two of the planes would be kept in reserve.

Prize money to the total of £400 was raised, some of it being provided by an oil company which made aeroplane fuel.

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This edited article about Amy Johnson originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 700 published on 14 June 1975.

James Mollison and Amy Johnson by James E McConnell

Shortly before breakfast on the morning of 5th May, 1930, a small green-and-silver Gypsy Moth biplane took off from Croydon Aerodrome. There were no big crowds to watch the event. The pilot, a young Yorkshire typist named Amy Johnson, was unknown to the public, and only her father and a few members of the London Aeroplane Club were there to wish her well on a daring trans-world flight.

As the heavily-laden little plane roared into the air at its second attempt, the men on the ground gave a ragged cheer.

Amy was hoping to fly her plane, Jason, across the globe to Australia and so become the first woman in the world to achieve such a feat. This was at a time when aviation was just struggling out of its infancy.

Since she had been a young girl, Amy had been keen on flying. She paid for lessons out of her small wage as a solicitor’s typist. After 16 hours flying, she qualified as an amateur pilot with an ‘A’ certificate. She then trained for and gained a ‘B’ certificate which entitled her to carry passengers. And she became the first woman to sit for and gain a certificate as a ground engineer.

Somehow, she managed to scrape together £600 to buy Jason, and her big adventure began.

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This edited article about aviation pioneers  originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 700 published on 14 June 1975.

Louis Bleriot, aviation pioneer

Although ballooning was great fun the men who soared ever higher and higher were still at the mercy of the winds; ballooning was a long way from the controlled flight of the birds. But another 70 years were to pass before the next successful stage in the conquest of the air was reached.

By the middle of the 19th century more and more aviators were taking another look at the birds – not attempting to fly by flapping wings but by gliding.

One name that stands out above all others among those glider designers is Sir George Cayley, who has been rightly called “The Father of Aviation”. A Yorkshire baronet, he spent most of his life experimenting and writing about the problems of flight, showing remarkable foresight in defining the basic requirements.

And in 1853 he became a member of the elite Flying Firsts by making the first successful glider flight. To be strictly accurate, it was Sir George’s terrified coachman who actually made the flight at his master’s instructions. Alas, the coachman’s comments on the experiments have not been recorded!

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This edited article about Amelia Earhart originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 699 published on 7 June 1975.

Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra

Amelia Earhart looked down anxiously from the cockpit of her single-engined Lockheed Vega aircraft as it laboured its way over the Atlantic Ocean. She was just four hours out from Harbour Grace in Newfoundland in her attempt to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, and now flames and smoke were billowing out beneath the fuselage.

The exhaust manifold had broken. Amelia put the plane into a steep climb. Then the altimeter failed, and ice began to form on the wings. The engine coughed and spluttered and started running rough.

It was dark and above the acrid smell of the flames and smoke that licked out from beneath her, Amelia smelt petrol. Sure enough, the petrol gauge was leaking. One stray spark now would be enough to turn the tiny aircraft into a ball of fire.

Yet, despite these setbacks, Amelia touched down safely in a field near Londonderry, Northern Ireland, fourteen hours after taking off from Newfoundland. It was a remarkable achievement and It made her, In that year of 1932, the darling of the flying world.

Throughout Europe and America, the name of this Kansas-born woman, the wife of an American publisher called George P. Putnam, was blazed across newspaper front pages.

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