The golden age of aviation art In April 1940, Imperial Airways and British Airways Ltd merged to form the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) but civil aviation had already been suspended because of the Second World War. It wasn't until six years later, that normal operations could resume, and despite austerity, a second period of poster promotion began, continuing right through to the Sixties. Aided by the optimistic spirit of the V&A's 1946 exhibition Britain Can Make It, the airlines expanded their campaign to include every aspect of industrial design - seats, cabins and so on - and engaged designers such as Robin Day. Queen Elizabeth II's ascension to the throne brought with it an era of royal endorsement. When her father died, the entire nation followed her progress home on the 24-hour BOAC flight from East Africa. And in the following year she embarked on a flying tour of the Commonwealth that took in Australia, New Zealand, Bermuda, Jamaica, Fiji, Tonga, the Coco Islands, Aden, Uganda, Malta and Gibraltar. Airlines began to realise their logo's visibility in a photograph did more than the combined power of all their posters and as the decade wore on, boasts of their carrying Elizabeth Taylor and Katherine Hepburn or Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud were two a penny. By the Sixties, tourism was the thing. Posters show BOAC's image shifting from national prestige to the wider world. They became more brochure-like, reassuring potential customers by depicting the pilots that flew you, the staff that served you and the cabin you flew in. Gradually, under the sway of photography and television, campaigns that could work across all platforms became the norm and the employ of artists a niche activity. Even the names BOAC and BEA disappeared, amalgamated under the British Airways's umbrella in 1974. The jet age changed the narrative irrevocably. Flight had turned its back on the avant garde in favour of mass market uniformity. "British Aviation Posters" (Ashgate) is available to pre-order from Telegraph Books at £35 + £1.35 p&p.