Photographs

R.E.G. Davies, his volunteers, and the staff of the National Air and Space Museum Archives developed a numbering system for the photographs, dividing the world into major global regions, mainly—but not entirely—by continent. Each airline was given an individual number, as part of a seven-figure decimal system with a base of F5. In the case of the United States, airlines were further subdivided by type (trunk, local/regional, cargo, etc.). Since the materials were collected over the span of many years, Davies usually maintained his original order rather than rearrange to match geopolitical changes. This order has been retained within the collection. For example, despite the dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1992, the airlines of Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina are still filed under Yugoslavia. The former Soviet regions are also retained together. Former colonial arrangements are often maintained as well, for example, the West Indies and much of Africa. All major airlines have a file and larger airlines may be further subdivided by aircraft category, even occasionally by aircraft type. For example, Pan American (and other large trunk airlines) is organized by: early piston engine land planes, early flying boats, big flying boats, modern piston land planes twin-engined, 4-engined piston landplanes, narrow-bodied jets/turboprops, and wide-bodied jets. Numerous smaller airlines are filed by geographic location only. At the end of each set are people, airports, and miscellaneous photographs. Volunteers were given instructions to place a label on the back of each photograph with the following information: reference number, airline name, aircraft model, and special features (such as registration number, location, if in color, date, etc.) Photographs are arranged in the original numerical order created by Davies and his volunteers. Question marks in folder titles are theirs. Several folders of unfiled materials remained after Davies' retirement. If possible, these were reintegrated, but marked "unfiled," at the proper location, but there remains a set of unidentified and duplicate images.