Ah, another glorious issue of Golden Age aviation’s premier journal! This one starts you off right with a lovely image of the 1919 Lawson airliner in flight. The feature article on this is worth the cost of this issue alone. Lawson’s airliner was one of the first purpose-designed passenger carriers that, unfortunately pre-dated widespread commercial air travel. It was a success in that it carried passengers on many publicity flights and was acclaimed for its comfort, but not as successful as Britain’s Handley-Page conversions or France’s Farman Goliath airliners. Lawson’s Midnight Airliner, complete with sleeping berths, is also covered. The article is well written, comes with plans, very good photos and color callouts. Some internet searching will probably uncover interior photos and the intrepid modeler can begin his scratchbuild (What? You think there’s a kit of this one??).

Another treat in this issue is continuing coverage of the Boeing Model 80, with cockpit photos and excellent plans.

For the Golden Age military enthusiast there are articles on Northrop Attack Aircraft and the Curtiss-Wright Model 23 Trainer, the latter with a cutaway drawing and some excellent detail photos.

Al Stix, of the HARM museum, gives us an article on OX-5 engined aircraft, with some really good drawings and detail photos; an excellent reference for this engine.

Ninette Heaton provides an interesting article on her flying years (1933-1935), a real taste of what flying in those Wonder Years was really like.

On the modeling front, Bill Bosworth provides a fascinating look at his 1/32nd scale Bell YFM-1 Airacuda scratchbuild; awesome!

ID UNK provides more obscure aircraft to identify along with the normal book reviews and such.

This issue also provides an index for issues 71-80.

All in all, another home run of an issue. For more info on subscribing (and you should), see: www.skywaysjournal.org