The non-profit UK-based group known as the Great War Aviation Society publishes A new magazine, Contact!, is now available in both print and digital download. The first two issues of Contact! are available for a free digital download on their website. Their journal, Cross & Cockade International, is also published four times a year. Issues are available in English as printed [Softbound, A4 (8.27” x 11.69”), 72 pages [including covers] as well as digital copies (or both). The Society also provides a free newsletter (sign up on their website) and occasionally publish WWI-themed books like the Sopwith Dolphin monograph I reviewed earlier for IPMS USA. This journal is the sister of the US Journal, Over The Front. The Great War Aviation Society also hosts a lecture series available through Zoom. If interested, you will need to register early as the call is limited in attendance. The Great War Aviation Society also is on Facebook and on X [Twitter].

The Winter 2025 of Contact! [Volume 2, Issue 4] features a color illustration by Colin Ashford of RNAS Short 827 at Chukwani Bay, Zanzibar. The cover is related to Mike Westrop’s article on Black Flight. The Sopwith Triplane front and center is of course Raymond Collishaw’s first Sopwith Triplane, N5490, “Black Maria”. There are seven pages of Great War advertising, including the inside front and rear covers and the rear cover. I counted 91 color photographs / illustrations and 56 black and white photographs / illustrations. There is also a color profile illustration of Albatros D.Va 5765/17 by Ronny Bar and an uncredited 4-view of Bishop’s Nieuport 23 B1566.

Great War modeling was a standard feature in the Journal that has now moved to Contact!, taking full advantage of color photographs. Joe Moran does an excellent buildup of the 2004 release of Olimp Models [P72-001] Curtiss Jenny JN-4 in 1/72-scale. To represent the 85^th Canadian Training Squadron that was based in Benbrook, Texas, Joe utilized Blue Rider’s BR226 decal sheet featuring C705. Phil Atkinson contributes a Revell 1/48 Sopwith F1 Camel in Raymond Collishaw’s markings, B6390, that took Best in Show at the 2025 IPMS Ireland Nationals. Haris Ali presents a build review of the Roden 1/32 Sopwith Triplane kit, part of which can be seen on Page 18. Key to this build was adding additional length to the fuselage, in this case a 6mm plug. Representing one of Raymond Collishaw’s Sopwith Triplanes, N533, this Triplane was one of six manufactured by Clayton and Shuttleworth that carried two Vickers machine guns.

A major theme of this issue is Canada’s Air War and many of the features are connected to the cover painting. Adrian Roberts tale, Reassessing Billy Bishop: Canada’s Most Controversial Ace, focuses on Canada’s leading ace with 72 victories. Covering six pages with eight photographs, a color 4-view illustration of Bishop’s Nieuport 23, B1566, is included. An August 1917 promotional picture shows Bishop standing in front of this Nieuport 23 on Page 24, although by this date, he was flying a Royal Aircraft Factory SE5a. Continuing the Canadian theme, John Myers presents a three-page biography on Lt James David Moses: A First Nations Airman of the Great War. Serving with 57 Squadron, Moses was a member of the Delaware, part of the Six Nations of the Grand River in Brant County, Ontario, Canada. Originally serving with the 37^th Regiment Haldimand Rifles, Moses reported for training with the Royal Flying Corps on September 3, 1917, as a gunner / observer. Lt James David Moses, who would serve on an Airco DH.4 [A7872] bomber is seen standing in a black and white photograph on Page 35. Sadly, Moses and his South African pilot, Second Lieutenant Douglas Price Trollip failed to return from their fourteenth bombing sortie on April 1, 1918.

Andrew Ferry introduces the activities of the volunteer Memorial Flight restoration group located at le Bourget airfield, near Paris. This four-page feature focuses on their current restoration activities that include an Aviatik C.I observation aircraft, a LVG C.VI [s/n 9041/18] reconnaissance 2-seater, an Albatros D.Va fighter, and a Morane Saulnier Type AI fighter. Immediately following is a three-page article on the Albatros D.Va [4360] that was recovered in 2005 near Boussicourt, a commune in northern France. Evidence points to this Albatros belonging to Leutnant Max Schick with Jasta 76b. A Ronny Bar color side profile can be found on Page 44 of this blue and white striped Albatros. The two-color photographs suggest his probable flight path from his home base at Suzanne airfield where Jasta 76b operated from April 15, 1918, through July 10, 1918.

Graham Mottram offers up four pages on the feature An Engine Ahead of its Time: The Rise and Fall of the RAF3. This feature follows the troubled development of the Royal Aircraft Factory liquid cooled V12 engine. The RAF3 was inspired by the Austro-Daimler straight six to the point where essentially two Austro-Daimler straight sixes bolted to a single crankcase. First manufactured in 1910, the Austro-Daimler straight six was designed by Dr-Ing Ferdinand Porsche. It was licensed to the Scottish William Beardmore and Company in 1913 with the result that the straight six engine saw significant use on both sides during WWI. Three black and white photographs on Page 57 depict the manufacturing of the RAF3 which was manufactured by Armstrong Whitworth and Napier & Son. Notable is the bottom picture that shows the impact of women in the factories while men were fighting on the front lines in WWI. Graham Mottram follows up the design and development of the RAF3 engine with a four-page feature on RAF3 Operations. Utility was limited to the Airco DH.4 and the Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.7, however, here the focus on the problematic implementation in the DH.4. The contents of this issue include:

Topics:

• Editor’s Letter
• The Briefing Room
• The Signals Office
• On the Workbench: Olimp Curtiss Jenny JN-4A/D 1:72 Scale by Joe Moran
• Great War Aviation Society Best in Show Winner: Revell 1/48 Sopwith F1Camel by Phil Atkinson
• Unassailable? Raymond Collishaw’s Doubts About a Legend by Michael Terry
• Modeling: Roden 1/32 Sopwith Triplane by Haris Ali [Page 18]
• Black Flight: 10 Squadron, Royal Naval Air Service by Mike Westrop
• Reassessing Billy Bishop: Canada’s Most Controversial Ace by Adrian Roberts [Page 24]
• The Numbers Game: Victory Scores in the Great War by Adrian Roberts
• Lt James David Moses: A First Nations Airman of the Great War by John Myers [Page 35]
• Memorial Flight: Volunteers Restore, Recreate Flying Aircraft of WWI by Andrew Ferry
• Unearthing Albatros No. 4360 [Page 44]
• The Life and Times of Major Thomas Faldcon Hazell, DSO, MC, DFC, & Bar by Robert Jocelyn
• Captured in Color: German Aircraft Through the Lens of Auguste Léon by David Méchin
• An Engine Ahead of its Time: The Rise and Fall of the RAF3 by Graham Mottram [Page 57]
• RAF3 Operations by Graham Mottram
• To Take Up Arms Part 6 by Paul Hare
• Exploring the RFC Collection at Old Sarum by Roger Green
• Classic Book Review: With a Bristol Fighter Squadron by Michael Terry

Contact! emphasizes more color than is common in the Cross & Cockade International journal that features period photographs. The articles are also more numerous and shorter than seen in the journal, but no less enjoyable. I was really impressed with the interesting tale was the use of eight Airco DH.4 bombers equipped with the RAF3a engine in Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution. The struggle with a water-cooled engine in Russian winter was quite real. The overall goal of adding Contact! to the Great War Aviation Society appears to be grabbing some of the younger crowd with a digital product and more color. I certainly hope this works for the younger crowd, but there is material here for all ages. If you are into early / WWI aviation, this magazine is for you!

My thanks to The Great War Aviation Society and IPMS/USA for the chance to review this great issue.

Highly recommended!