Here’s a few pages from a book from 1931*, when roundels were RED white and blue, thanks to the hand tinting colour process used.

We take full colour printing for granted these days, but it wasn’t that long ago it was a big deal to have any colour at all – this book has only a few colour pages, a couple of which, like these Supermarine Southamptons seem to be very basic after colour tinting.

The Supermarine S.6B frontispiece gets a full moody sky however…

While the Vickers Victoria is a bit of a mixture. Notice the hand-created engine and forward fuselage.

Details of the book above, should you have a yen for your own copy (or maybe ‘From Post Boy to Air Mail’?) this magnificent one lent to me by my good friend Keith Webb. Thanks!

James Kightly, Vintage Aero Writer.

*A 1935 reprint, but I’m sure the content is unchanged! Source Keith Webb of Image Control.