THE DREAM These UK gliding magazines were the start of a scanning project that evolved into a determination to professionally scan all out of print UK gliding books and create an eBook library. The intention was that the BGA would have an accessible, catalogued hard copy gliding library and eventually the BGA website would host all the scanned UK gliding magazines and eBook library. Both magazines and eBooks are searchable and freely available. The first magazine was scanned in January 2005.
THE HISTORY. The magazine scanning was done from a nearly complete set of UK gliding magazines which were given by the Redshaw family to The Lakes Gliding Club. The family has been involved in gliding since 1930. There are about 4 nearly complete sets that are known to be in existence, but they are not readily available to the flying world. A few of the Lakes set were missing . With the support of Wally Kahn, who held the only known totally complete set and who kindly allowed access to his collection, the missing magazines were scanned. Wally's magazine collection has now been generously gifted to the BGA. All UK gliding magazines from 1930 to 2009 have now been scanned into searchable PDF format, some 724 magazines which started out as weekly and over time became bi-monthly.
Why did Peter start this mammoth magazine scanning task back in 2005? Sadly a number of magazines went missing from the set held by the Lakes Gliding Club . Security was tightened but it was too late. What if there is a fire, the whole collection would have been lost. There is a tremendous amount of valuable information about gliding in both the UK and Overseas in these magazines and it should not be lost. The safest way to ensure retention, access to this information and history was to commit them to digital format and share them. The PDF format was been chosen as Adobe Reader software is freely available and Adobe is an International reliable software source.
The magazines were scanned for free and judging from the number of magazine downloads that are still being made, you obviously enjoy reading them. Hopefully you will contribute to the archive projects in exchange. The current one is the "Wally Kahn/BGA Book Collection" , the next one will be UK gliding ephemera, photos etc.
Would you like a FREE SET OF MAGAZINES for personal use on your own computer, searchable, on a memory stick containing the 724 Old UK Gliding Magazines from 1930 to 2009? Two levels are available, web resolution and high resolution. A donation of £200 gets the web resolution copy (6GB) and £500 gets the high resolution copy (15GB).
This is a temporary home for these digital magazines. The BGA has agreed to host them on their Sailplane and Gliding website when they upgrade their website facility, make them easily searchable, freely available and retain them for posterity. When the archive is fully functional it is intended to keep all magazines in the digital archive with the exception of the last 5 years. A suitable keyword search and display format on the BGA website will probably emulate this site and/or the Flightglobal Archive website at http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/index.html
THE MAGAZINES. The magazines are grouped by volume, number, date and magazine title. A keyword search cannot be done across all files from here but you can read and search the individual magazines. To keyword search across all the current uploaded files use Google Web Site search facility, it works well. 724 magazines have been scanned including 108 VGC News magazines from 1973 to 2003. For security and posterity, the BGA and VGC have been given master digital copies of their respective magazines.
Sailplane and Glider from 1930 to 1955 (300)
Gliding from 1950 to 1955 (22)
Sailplane and Gliding from 1955 to 2009 (290)
Soaring Pilot from 1973 to 1974 (4)
VGC News from 1973 to 2003 (108)
The first ever UK gliding magazine was "Sailplane and Glider" Sept 6th 1930, Vol 1 No 1
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Volume 5 |
Volume 6 |
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Volume 8 |
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Volume 10 |
Volume 11 |
Volume 12 |
The war interrupted publication but commenced again with Volume 12 Feb 1944 |
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Volume 13 |
Volume 14 |
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Volume 16 |
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Volume 17 |
Volume 18 |
Volume 19 |
Volume 20 |
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Volume 21 |
Volume 22 |
Volume 23 |
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The magazines became bi-monthly Dec 1953 |
This is the last of the Sailplane and Glider magazines. The magazine was reborn as Sailplane & Gliding, today's magazine. |
There was a degree of competition, unhappiness and frustration in the gliding magazine market place which led to both Sailplane and Glider and Glider being merged into one by 1955. This was the birth of our current magazine Sailplane and Gliding |
"Gliding" magazine started in 1950 as an organ of the BGA and fished in 1955 when it became Sailplane and Gliding absorbing Sailplane and Glider
Volume 1 |
Volume 2 |
Volume 3 |
Volume 4 |
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Volume 6 |
Volume 6 |
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This is the last of the Gliding magazines. The magazine was reborn as Sailplane & Gliding, today's magazine. |
"Sailplane and Gliding" first issue was October 1955, immediately above right.
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Volume 8 |
Volume 9 |
Volume 10 |
Volume 11 |
Volume 12 |
Volume 13 |
Volume 14 |
Volume 15 |
Volume 16 |
Volume 17 |
Volume 18 |
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Volume 19 |
Volume 20 |
Volume 21 |
Volume 22 |
Volume 23 |
Volume 24 |
Volume 25 |
Volume 26 |
Volume 27 |
Volume 28 |
Volume 29 |
Volume 30 |
Volume 31 |
Volume 32 |
Volume 33 |
Volume 34 |
Volume 35 |
Volume 36 |
Volume 37 |
Volume 38 |
Volume 39 |
Volume 40 |
Volume 41 - XLI |
Volume 42 - XLII |
Volume 43 - XLIII |
Volume 44 - XLIV |
Volume 45 - XLV |
Volume 46 - XLVI |
Volume 47 - XLVII |
Volume 48 |
Volume 49 |
Volume 50 |
Volume 51 |
Volume 52 |
Volume 53 |
Volume 54 |
Volume 55 |
Volume 56 |
Volume 57 |
Volume 58 |
Volume 59 |
Volume 60 |
Volume 61 |
S&G Year Books |
This is the last one we scanned as the BGA now has digital copies from the S&G printers. |
The future update of these scanned magazines is now in the hands of the BGA. The intention is to stay 5 years behind the current issue. |
Vintage Glider Club, VGC News. The VGC started in 1973 at Husbands Bosworth. A Newsletter was initially produced which became the VGC News, a full blown magazine as the VGC grew in size.
These were scanned from the VGC News/Newsletters held by the VGC archive. Of the early Newsletters there are 25 which suggests 1 is missing as the numbering starts at 27. Anyone help?
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The scanning of 2004 and later Newsletters or gathering of electronic publishers files of the Newsletters has been left with the VGC |
"Soaring Pilot" was briefly produced in 1973. Only 4 magazines were issued.
In order to open the PDF documents, Adobe Reader (version 8 or later) will need to be installed on your PC. To download the latest copy of this software go to http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html
An alternate and sometimes better free software for reading the PDF files is Foxit Reader, this is available at http://www.foxitsoftware.com/Secure_PDF_Reader Use Foxit Reader if Adobe is not opening the pictures properly.
Copyright is that of The Lakes Gliding Club, The British Gliding Association and The Vintage Glider Club (who between them own the original magazines). No use other than personal use should be made of these documents without written permission of the relevant parties. They are not to be amended or used on other websites.
Back to Lakes GC Website BGA Website VGC Website "Wally Kahn/BGA Book Collection" Gliding Heritage Centre website
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