RAY STURTIVANT - AVIATION HISTORIAN

Ray Sturtivant's interest in aviation stems from his boyhood visits to watch the bombers and trainers at the many wartime airfields within cycling distance of his Nottinghamshire home.

Ray's National Service was spent in India with the RAF.

Early in his career as a civil servant, from which he retired in 1986 as Establishment Officer to the Family Division at Somerset House (after being honoured with the Imperial Service Order - ISO), he discovered a talent for searching out and assembling facts and figures, an ability he developed in researching the aircraft and units of the RAF and Fleet Air Arm.

Over nearly half a century he has written countless articles on various aviation topics, his long-running series 'Problem Pictures' in Aviation News magazine having given him a deserved reputation for being able to find the answers to the most obscure questions and expressing them in logical and readable form. Certainly, his persistence in this field has resulted in much historical information being pieced together which would otherwise have been lost to posterity.

In addition to this and to contributing to books by other authors, Ray has written a number of books of his own. His preference is to deal in great depth with subjects that require considerable research, and which, therefore, are seldom investigated by others. He has a particular interest in the Fleet Air Arm, on whose aircraft and squadrons he is accepted as the leading authority.

In recent years his efforts have been almost entirely devoted to producing and editing military aviation books for the aviation society Air-Britain of which he has been an active member since its inception in 1948, and a committee member and director for a number of years. He is also co-editor of its 'Aeromilitaria' magazine.