In seeking to record the history of British aviation during the lifetime of our Queen we are reminded, appropriately enough, that the story begins co-incidentally with what was in many ways a phase of aviation itself. By 1926, when the Princess Elizabeth was born, the country had at last recovered from the exhaustion of the Great War years, and many of the wartime types of aircraft still in Service use and also in civil employment had at last given place to new designs. No longer did passengers travel precariously to the Continent in twos and threes in converted bombers; they flew by the dozen in relative comfort, in machines that had already come to be known as "airliners."
The man in the street, in fact, was beginning to discover aviation. A light-aeroplane and club flying movement that seemed to hold enormous promise was getting him under way: though flying instruction was not cheap,he could buy himself one of the new de Havilland Moths for £595.
Source: Flight International
