An Explanation

AFTER six months of luxury we make with this issue an enforced return to austerity. With what has unfortunately proved to be unjustifiable optimism we at the beginning of this year took the step of reverting to our 1939 practice of printing the editorial pages on art paper. This of course has the inestimable advantage for the reader of making possible the use of half‐tone blocks for the reproduction of photographs with a finer “screen”, resulting in enhanced definition and greatly superior quality in the revealing of details. AIRCRAFT ENGINEERING has never gone in for the publication of photographs merely for the sake of “pictures”. Consequently, wherever a photograph appears it does so for the purpose of giving information—so that in the highest sense “every picture tells a ‘story’”—and it is therefore obviously desirable to have the quality of the reproduction the highest attainable. It is with keen regret that we have come to the decision to abandon the use of art paper and return to the inferior type of paper we were compelled to use from April, 1942, to the beginning of this year.