NOSTALGIA

I wrote for model Airplane News, "MAN" primarily during the 1965/1968 time period, and was able to visit the offices in New York as well as 'do lunch', dinner and -- ah - drinks with Walt Schroeder and Jay P. Cleveland. Jay never met a Martini he didn't like

Long before that, MAN was my first model airplane magazine. I'll always remember reading those issues and the time I spent writing for MAN. I wish that MAN still covered the complete spectrum of modeling activity. --- But the old issue above is a good start for looking at just a few photo memories.

The Editors of MAN were varied, but most folks that were modelers then can remember the names.

• Charles Hampson Grant in the very early days. Best known for his book on model aerodynamics that were full of mistaken notions and misinformation.
• Seemingly demoted during World War II, G. C. Johnson, at an earlier time the president of Air Age Incorporated, MAN's parent company, took over as editor. C.H.Grant, R. McLarren and H. E. Burns were 'associate editors'. McLarren basicaly wrote the stuff on man-carrying aircraft.
• William Winter. Who had a long career as a writer for model airplane magazines, later a columnist for MAN, then for Model Aviation and so-on.
• Walt Schroeder during my tenure. Walt got together with Bill Bennet, then board charman of the Circus Circus hotel and casino chain, to invent the now famous "Tournament of Champions" in Las Vegas.

By 1935 when the cover above appeared,  the health nut job Bernarr McFadden had sold Model Airplane News to the "Jay Publishing Corp." A New York Corporation headed by George C. Johnson and employing Jay P. Cleveland as secretary. The corporate and editorial offices were at 551 5^th Avenue, N.Y.C. as they would be for the next 50 years. The distance in time from the Wright brothers' flight to the cover is little more than the time from the appearance of the personal computer to today, and airplanes were truly a thing of wonder that captured the imagination of many.

The magazine had begun the transition from Boy's Mechanics through Universal Model Airplane News to just plain Model Airplane News. The January 1935 issue cover shown here has artwork signed by a young Josezf Kotula, later just 'Jo'. He was to continue this practice over thirty years, for as long as MAN stayed in New York.

The walls of the offices of Model Airplane News at 551 5^th Avenue were tiled over with Kotula's cover art; each one appeared to be a water color and was done in the actual size of the cover.