Air Britain Historians

'Air Britain Historians' are a highly respected Aircraft Enthusiast Organisation both in the United Kingdom and throughout much of the world.

Formed shortly after the second world war, they were one of the earliest aircraft enthusiast/ historical societies to start publishing (in increments over time) full historical civil aircraft registers of countries worldwide. This continues today with the most recent example being 'The Complete Civil Aircraft Registers of Peru' published in 2016. As time went on, annual registers taking a snapshot of the current year for the UK and most of Europe as well as annual Airline Fleet books and Corporate Aircraft lists were added to the portfolio.

Since around 1965, Air Britain has also dedicated itself to producing some outstanding civil and military aircraft (and a few airline) monographs, primarily for their members but also for the enthusiast community as a whole at a slightly higher retail price.

As the main function of this website is to cover Transport subjects, for the purposes of the 'Air Britain' section, I am concentrating here purely on their excellent publications featuring civil and commercial aircraft and military transport aircraft subjects. Those which cover both civil and military aviation in the broader sense such as 'Aviation Year' are not included.

From 1965 until 1994, the organisation produced a series of 7" x 9.5" portrait softbacks and four additional hardbacks with dust jackets of similar dimensions. These are covered in section one of the gallery below which features the original series of individual aircraft type and aircraft manufacturer monographs. Note that the Bristol Freighter & Britannia volume was the odd man out as it was produced in a taller size format than the rest.

From 1995 onwards, high quality large format 8.5" x 12" portrait hardbacks became the order of the day, some with laminated covers and others with dust jackets (and some with both!) These are featured in section two - the second series of individual aircraft type and aircraft manufacturer monographs. This series continues today and includes more recently some softback titles of similar dimensions but with far fewer pages than the firmly established hardbacks, albeit still maintaining the high quality of content and production.

Section three features a variety of formats and concentrates on books published about individual airlines, individual country histories (civil aviation in general and aircraft types in the case of France) and also some historical registers including a volume on all Balloons ever registered worldwide as of 2009. Other historical registers are included in the 'Archive Special' series section 5.

The many annual and periodical registers published by Air Britain are not included on this webpage (eg: the QRs / Civil Aircraft Registers of the United Kingdom / Jet  & Turboprop Airliners of the World) but a separate section on the website will be dedicated to their 'Airline Fleets' publications at a later date.

Section four presents three books about the early years of flying. These are large portrait hardbacks with dust jackets.

Finally, section five includes all six members of the 'Archive Special' series published between 1989 and 2001 which are large portrait softbacks.

Most of the newer books retail at around £40-£60 (softbacks £25-£40) and many of the earlier ones from section two can be difficult to come by these days, often commanding very high prices secondhand! The CL-44, Viscount and Constellation books are particular cases in point (see image on the right).

Air Britain continues to publish excellent, well-researched and informative monographs on both civil and military aircraft subjects with superb and often rare photos, using their pool of dedicated experts and researchers.

All new civil aircraft and military transport titles (except annual registers) will be added to this 'Air Britain Monographs' section of 'World of Transport Books' as and when they are released.

To view the front cover book images in the galleries below, arrow right for the next one in sequence. Volumes are presented chronologically by date of publication with the exception of multiple editions which are grouped together, the primary date being that of the first edition.