Since the previous newsletter, work has resumed on the final two numbers of Journal Volume 58. Number 3 (the cover for which is shown above, featuring Helene Girard's lovely study of a Buffalo Airways DC-3 in its usual setting) will be ready for the proofreaders as soon as I get the final draft of my "From the Editor" and "Cover Stories" columns chopped down to a suitable size for the space available, and some of the remaining photo captioning completed. This will occur within the coming week. 

The unmistakable yellow Harvards illustrated by Allan Botting on the second cover are in theme with Leo Pettipas' "Manitoba and Early Cold War Flying Training in the RCAF" – a feature article that will appear in Volume 58 Number 4. His subject, the NATO Air Training Plan, was, as Leo reminds us in his introduction:

Less conspicuous in Canadian military aviation historiography is a similar enterprise that did not achieve the overall magnitude of the [British Commonwealth Air Training Plan] but which actually ran for a longer period of time. The NATO [Plan], like its predecessor, was in progress while a hot war was ongoing, but it was actually conceived before the conflict in question (the Korean War) began, continued well beyond the cessation of hostilities, and, in fact, was generated with an altogether different problem in mind.

The author's detailed coverage of this particular Canadian military aviation contribution to NATO, with photo illustrations from the archives of our Department of National Defence via Editorial Board member Major Bill March (retired), serves the history well. Other aspects of Canada's global (NATO, UN, and NORAD) aviation commitments will feature in at least four additional Journal items across the next dozen or so numbers. There are plenty of other genres in the works, of course, but I must admit, as NATO commemorates its 75th year, it is nice to have a historian of Leo's calibre remind us that we were there from the very beginning.