British Air Publications ?

A question on the SOE list

This is, in an indirect way, an SOE related question:

How can one get access to the official "British Air Publications" ?
Are they filed or archived somewhere?

Can someone give me an answer that I can pass on please.

Are these just "Air Publications" (AP) ? Many of these are available to view at The National Archives at Kew (TNA) and I believe the RAF Museum (RAFM) holds some as well, although I haven't seen these in person. A select few can be found online, mainly in US based organisations where the rules of copyright are a lot more relaxed. The online auction sites also occasionally have various APs for sale although the majority appear to be various pilots notes, both originals and modern replicas, some in PDF form.

There are also Air Ministry Orders (AMO) which seem to supplement Air Publications in some cases and again these can be found at TNA and RAFM but I believe the RAFM has a more complete collection.

It really depends on what subject is being researched. The problem I have found is that online searching can be a minefield of incorrect terms and titles and you may have to use your own "fuzzy logic" to try and track down what you want.

I will ask

Because of my original apprenticeship, Radio and Radar is still an interest, so

you could try VMARS
www.vmarsmanuals.co.uk/archive/files_index.htm
AP3302 for instance from my basic training [Standard Technical Training Notes for the Radio Engineering Trade Group (Fitters). Electrical and Radio Fundamentals (Book 1 - Sections 1 to 7)]

Henlow Signals Museum and Colin Hinson has created this collection
www.blunham.com/Radar/

Or you could try a search like Air Publications AP filetype:pdf on google or something similar
This will also find references to AP within PDF's so some manual filtering will be required, life is not perfect
And of course most of these are unofficial scans of the original document, so quality may vary

Thanks for the Blunham link. Although radar is not on my "radar" those ATC mags and the other periodicals are always of interest.

From adverts in the ATC mag I now know why there was a song about nuclear bombs to the Pepsodent advert tune. "You wonder where the yellow went.........."
They used something called irium to whiten teeth which I believe is a form of bleach, but some people associated it with radioactivity and therefore nuclear, possibly sounding similar to radium?