What’s in a Number?

We use numbers for so many things: to measure, tell time, keep track of our ages — and recognize milestones. The latter is what we are doing with this 100th issue of Aviation History. We are celebrating with a special collection of great articles, many of them authored by longtime contributors.

Some of these writers started contributing in our premiere issue, published in September 1990. Walter J. Boyne and C.V. Glines were also founding members of our editorial advisory board — and still are. Boyne (ex Air Force pilot and former director of the National Air and Space Museum) and Glines (another former Air Force pilot who once ran the Magazine and Book Branch of the Pentagon) are stalwarts in aviation publishing, each with somewhere around 40 books and hundreds of magazine articles to his credit. Another editorial advisory member, Keith Ferris, is a world-renowned artist who founded the American Society of Aviation Artists, the works of whom we use regularly in Aviation History’s pages.

Looking back at the approximately 1,000 articles that have appeared in the magazine up to now, it is tempting to look ahead to when our 200th issue is published and imagine what we will be writing about. There certainly will still be a lot of prior history to continue reporting on, but what’s being accomplished today will start entering the repertoire of what’s considered aviation history — new aircraft, new records, new accomplishments in both civil and military aviation.

And while we are patting our backs on achieving a 100th issue, we need to recognize all those who got us here with their participation and support — our contributors of words and artwork, a supportive management, ad sales reps and all the other individuals who help to build a magazine. Especially important to our success is you, the reader, who subscribes or buys the magazine at newsstands, and purchases items advertised in it.

In issue Number 1 we pledged that we would do “our best to make Aviation History both interesting and enlightening, a magazine you will enjoy reading each issue.” That pledge is hereby reconfirmed. We will continue to chronicle both the significant and the often obscure stories of the subject we all love — aviation.

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