Having read FlyPast Magazine as a youngster, I never envisaged I would be sitting in the editor’s chair for the 500th issue. And yet here we are, precisely 500 issues on from the magazine’s launch in 1981, when 95p bought you 70 pages of black and white historical features, aviation news and a Michael Turner painting in the centrefold.
As the 500th issue approached I found myself drawing ever more inspiration from that first issue. Hence, I have upped the amount of current preservation features in line with our original manifesto ‘to present the reader with pioneering coverage of this fascinating world of living history’. And this issue sees the return of something many have asked for, a centre-spread image.
I also felt it was important to give a nod back to our first issue and revisit one of the original features, hence the ten pages on recovering Wellington N2980 from Loch Ness. The original feature described it as ‘the most ambitious aviation archaeological project ever undertaken’, and seeing how it looked when it was raised from the loch illustrates how much time, money and effort has been invested in it over the intervening years.
If we had said to a reader in issue one that 42 years later they’d be able to fly as a passenger in a Hurricane they wouldn’t have believed us. The world had never known a two-seater Hurricane
back then and yet, thanks to continued interest in historic aviation, such a thing is now possible. Thanks of course, in no small part to Hurricane Heritage, who are providing just such an opportunity to one lucky winner of our competition (see page 25, closing date May 12, 2023). As the saying goes, you have to be in it
to win it, and what a prize!
Who knows what will be flying in another four decades, but one thing is for sure, FlyPast Magazine will be there to cover it.

Download from:

NitroFlare

• Fieldsports Magazine – February 2023
• Forestry Journal – February 2023