Growing up in the late 1950s/early 1960s, Neil Robinson had an interest in aeroplanes from an early age, which expressed itself by him spending most of his paper round money buying aviation magazines such as ‘Flying Review’ and ‘Aircraft Illustrated’ and Airfix and Frog kits. Hanging onto every word of W R ‘Bill’ Matthews’ ‘Model Talk’  in ‘Flying Review’ and Alan W Hall’s conversions in ‘Airfix Magazine’, he continued to have an interest in aeroplanes and model making throughout his teens and joined IPMS (UK) in 1969.

 After several years of writing articles for aviation enthusiast and aircraft modelling magazines, he was appointed editor of IPMS Magazine in the mid-1980s, after which in the early 1990s he self-published his own magazines, ‘Quarter Scale Modeller’ (for 1/48 scale aircraft modellers) and ‘Seventy Second Scale Modeller’ (for 1/72 scale aircraft modellers), for two years, until his first proper ‘commercial’ editing job in 1995, editing ‘Military ModelCraft’, covering figure, AFV and vehicle modelling, despite all his interest and knowledge being in aviation topics.

 Then in late 1998, he took over editorship of ‘Scale Aircraft Modelling’ from the (then) owner, Alan W Hall, during which time he also introduced and edited a new range of enthusiast titles for Guideline Publications – the ‘Camouflage & Markings’ and ‘Combat Colours’ ranges of books.

 In the spring of 2003 he helped form a then brand new venture, called The Aviation Workshop. Unfortunately the company tried to grow and expand too quickly and couldn’t support all the creative team members, so he moved to SAM Publications, editing another relatively new magazine, ‘Model Aircraft Monthly’.

 After five years with SAM Publications he temporarily re-joined The Aviation Workshop, in April 2010, as Book Production Editor for their range of ‘On Target’ books, before joining forces with a local printer and starting the AIRfile range of camouflage and markings books.

He is now a freelance author and editor, and enjoying his semi-retirement on the east coast of Yorkshire.

Terry Higgins
Ontario-based designer, illustrator, andwriter Terry Higgins is a native of Norris Arm, Newfoundland, who has had a lifelong fascination with all things aviation-history related. After the usual high school era Royal Canadian Air Cadets stint and subsequent interests in both gliding and powered flight, Terry realized that he was drawn more towards the technical and operational history aspects of aviation. This led, in a roundabout way,to careers in photo-processing technology and print/digital reprographics. Throughout, Terry kept up his childhood hobbies of model building and (mostly aviation related) illustration.

Today, Terry’s enterprise, SkyGrid Studio,specializes in aviation-history-focused research, illustration, design, and editorial work for clients ranging from aviation-speciality publishers and scale-model manufacturers to museums and aircraft restorers. He has consulted on a number of projects with the Airfix design team over the past decade – the most personally rewarding of which was the firm’s new-tool 1/72 scale Beaufighter series.

Terry has been the graphics editor of the flagship publication of the Canadian Aviation Historical Society (CAHS), the CAHS Journal, since 2010. He also assumed the role of managing editor in 2012.  His series of articles “The Last of the Buffalo Beaux”—an account detailing the final 404 Squadron Beaufighter combat operation of the Second World War—received the Canadian Aviation Historical Society’s C. Don Long Best Article Award for 2015.