30 August 2024:
Volume 58 Number 3 is now in print production. Within the coming week a link to the digital (PDF) edition will then be emailed to all current members for whom we have an up-to-date email address. The PDF will also be posted in the Members Only area of this site (accessible via the LOG IN menu tab above). This page will be updated when the print edition has been mailed. Both print and digital editions will then be made available in the e-Shop for non-members to purchase.

Select the thumbnail images above to preview the feature article title pages of CAHS Journal Volume 58 Number 3.

The digital edition of the RCAF Centennial 1924-2024 Special Edition of the CAHS Journal is now available to all current members in the Members Only area of this site via the LOG IN menu tab above. Both print and digital editions are also available for non-members to purchase in the e-Shop.

Select the thumbnail images above to preview the feature article title pages of the CAHS Journal RCAF Centennial 1924 – 2024 Special Edition.
The full-colour digital edition is available to all current CAHS National Members (including Traditional, Museum, Corporate/Sponsoring, and Anywhere-Online memberships) and those with expired memberships still within the grace period.
  • To access the digital (PDF) edition of this Journal or any other published digitally since 2010, first select LOG IN in the main menu at the top of this page (if the words MY ACCOUNT appear in its place, then you are already logged in).
  • Enter your email and password in the resulting pop-up box. Your email address must be the same one we have on file in your membership record. If it has changed, please provide us with the information to update it before logging in.
  • If you don't remember your password, or have yet to set one for the members only area, just click Reset Password to make a new one
  • Casual visitors, e-Newsletter subscribers without a CAHS National Membership, or those with memberships that have expired beyond the grace period will not be able to log in. If you are uncertain as to your membership status, please get in touch with our membership administrator here…
  • Traditionally, individual CAHS Journal numbers have been in the 40 to 44 pages range, with colour on the covers and sometimes (subject either to opportunity or budget) across the centre-fold. Within the past decade, we have offered a "no paper, no mailing" membership in the form of our Anywhere-Online option. To date, Anywhere-Online Members have been receiving a high-resolution PDF "replica" – an exact digital copy of the print edition enjoyed by Traditional Members – via email. While some may view such digital publications as being less desirable than their print-production counterparts, it is undeniable that they do offer a number of distinct advantages including:
    Full Word / Word String Search Capability
    Whether you use your internet browser, an operating system level viewer (such as Preview on a MacOS computer), or a dedicated Adobe program (such as Acrobat Reader or Acrobat Pro), all Online editions of our Journal produced since 2010 are fully searchable, making our digital publications a valuable time-saving asset for researchers and the similarly curious.
    * To search for specific word strings, simply use quotation marks when typing in a search. For example, typing "Bill McCrae" will return only results including both words in that order whereas typing both words without the quotation marks will return all instances of the word "Bill" and all instances of the word "McCrae".

    Text Legibility
    Limitations of some PDF viewing software notwithstanding, our digital publications retain the actual typography set during their digital pre-press creation. That is to say, each page is not just a scanned image file. This means the text does not become pixelated if enlarged for easier on-screen reading. Even limited capability viewers allow at least 400% on-screen magnification, resulting in large, sharp on-screen text.

    Image Fidelity
    It doesn't always work out, but if we have high-resolution images to begin with during pre-press, then the same on-screen magnification function that produces the text legibility described above will also help produce reasonably sharp on-screen enlargement of photos, maps, and other graphical content. The way our PDFs are custom-crafted, this remains true as long as we've had high-resolution image files to start with.

    Durability
    Digital publications last forever. And, thanks to the inherent search capability noted above, if you happen to have "misplaced" one on your computer, you can perform a system-wide search using the volume and number (or any subject known to be part of any given Journal's contents) as search terms.
    On the other hand, if it isn't found (usuallydue to accidental deletion) and assuming your Anywhere-Online membership is current, simply contact CAHS Membership HQ to request a fresh copy.
    And, From Volume 57 onwards…
    To add even more value to our growing library of digital publications going forward we are pleased to introduce a full colour content feature.

    In the past, to stay within budget as printing costs continue to rise, our pre-press workflow was optimized for "mostly black & white" print production. Within it, with the exceptions of colour covers and the occasional centre-spread as noted above, all colour graphical content had to be converted to black & white imagery prior to press and, since our digital editions to date have been PDF replicas of the print editions, they have been limited to "mostly black & white" imagery.

    Starting with the soon-to-press Volume 57 Number 1, we've adjusted our workflow so that the print editions will remain as is, while the digital editions will – in cases where the graphical content has been supplied by authors and other contributors in colour – feature colour reproduction throughout.

    Going forward, this feature will also carry over into other digital publications based on Journal content, including our growing range of individual article PDFs and article series compendiums, both of which are made available in our shop within a month or so of the publication of the Journal(s) they first appear in.

Scope, depth, & range – variety in every issue


Each issue of our CAHS Journal is filled with well-researched articles, first-person accounts, profiles of important people and aircraft, and, when available, reviews of new aviation history books. It’s not all text, though: Throughout you will find photos, maps, and other illustrations – many of which may have been rarely published, if at all. When we do choose to use previously published illustrative material, we do so with contextual relevance to the subject at hand in mind, and strive to avoid the generic where the specific will benefit the overall coverage of whatever the subject of the day might be.
     Unless the issue at hand is a themed special edition, we also work to keep the range of subject as varied as possibles within any given issue. The preferred approach is to select articles from more than one or two of the recognized historical periods in aviation history and within those, a good mix of the biographical with historical accounts of aircraft types, makers, operators (both civil and military), and aviation technologies.
     In that context, the recognized historical periods are generally understood to be:
  • Early or Pioneer (pre First World War) - 1913 and before;
  • First World War - 1914 to1918;
  • Golden Era (the early bush-plane years, or or the "bush pilots in uniform" years in Canadiana-speak) - 1919 to 1938;
  • Second World War - 1939 to 1945 and;
  • Post War - 1946 to present, minus 20. 

Heading into the second decade of the new century with Y2K now some twenty years in the rear view, "Post War" can probably be further segmented into Cold War and Post Cold War. Perhaps? ​​​Well, you get the picture.
     Whatever the case, we do our best to publish a good variety, both in terms of period and subject genre, across each annual volume's four numbered issues. For the most part we tend to achieve this, but the reality of randomized availability does sometimes mean the goal is not always achievable. In recognition of that, I will be posting  "wants and needs" here from time to time. Maybe some of you out there can help us keep the output in line with aspiration?
Thanks and regards,
Terry Higgins,
​CAHS Journal managing editor & graphics director

CAHS Journal Distributions & the Web Shop

Since 2010, the CAHS Journal has been published in two editions – print and digital. The former is distributed to our Traditional Membership, Museum Membership, and Corporate Sponsor Membership and the latter to our Online Membership. With the advent of this website, we also offer instant-download PDFs of individual articles and article compendia – both extracted from our digital editions – as part of our new digital publications catalogue.

This website's Shop makes available all CAHS Journals, 2010 to present, in both print and digital editions, as well as the range of articles and compendia from all issues since 2010. It is intended that our digital products, with their fully searchable textual content and high fidelity (comparable to high-quality print-production norms) graphical content,  may offer a useful variation for any readers library – whether researcher, writer, or enthusiast, member, or non-member.
Digital editions are also a good option for those looking for sold-out back-issues. However, if "print" is your preference, we have also negotiated an equitable Print on Demand (POD) arrangement with our printers. Within it, any Journal published using our digital workflow (in effect since 2010) but out of stock in its original print-production form will be made available in POD form if a POD run is triggered by a back-issue order. The first such POD edition is now available in the Shop.

Legacy (pre-2010) print editions are still available as either remaining inventory of the original print runs, or as staple-bound copy prints (usually photo-copies). All legacy Journals have now been added to the shop, which is now fully searchable by title or author.

It should be noted here that, while the CAHS Shop is open to all, our CAHS Journal membership distributions will always be delivered a full two weeks to a month before any given new edition, or it's individual articles, are made available here. Likewise, compendia will only post to the shop within a month of the last serial instalment of any given article series is distributed to the membership.