Short Singapore III K4581 of No.205 Squadron sits on its beaching gear in the maintenance area of Royal Air Force Station, Seletar, Singapore, shortly before the outbreak of World War Two.

Самолёты на фотографии: Aircrafts on the photo: Short Singapore III / S.19 - ВеликобританияUnited Kingdom - 1934

At the risk of appearing to over-emphasise airfields in this issue, the back cover photograph has been selected to illustrate one of the Royal Air Force's most famous overseas stations.
Lying between Cairo and the Suez Canal, Heliopolis was retained as a permanent station after the end of World War One when many Egyptian airfields closed down. It is perhaps best known as the home of the Victoria and Valentia bomber-transports which so typified the activities of the RAF in the Middle East between the wars. It also was a staging post on Imperial Airways routes to South Africa and the Far East.
In layout, it was typical of desert airfields in having its buildings clustered together within a perimeter fence. By tradition, the local inhabitants were assumed to be able to purloin anything not embedded in concrete, a much greater menace than air attack. At night, the gates were closed to leave only the landing ground open to stray visitors. In the photograph can be seen Fairey IIIFs and Atlases parked outside the wire while beside the large hangar sits a D.H.66 tri-motor of Imperial Airways. The three smaller hangars nearest to the large hangar were used by the airline and the RAF fence neatly loops back to allow them to guard their own property!
In the left background, safely isolated from the main camp, is the ammunition dump in its revetment and wired in separately.
The photograph was taken on 8 March 1929 by No.208 (Army Cooperation) Squadron.

Самолёты на фотографии: Aircrafts on the photo: Armstrong Whitworth Atlas / Ajax - ВеликобританияUnited Kingdom - 1925De Havilland Hercules / D.H.66 - ВеликобританияUnited Kingdom - 1926Fairey Fairey IIIF - ВеликобританияUnited Kingdom - 1926