Fly Magazine

Fly Magazine was an aeronautics magazine founded and edited by Alfred William Lawson and published from c. 1908 through at least 1913.

Only volumes 4–5 seem to be available online, at HathiTrust and elsewhere. Hard copies (and other Lawson material) are held by the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison.

Fly was not absolutely the first American aviation journal, but it probably was the earliest to be aimed at a general audience and to make heavier-than-air flight its main focus. Inasmuch as only three Americans had yet flown in airplanes, however, the market prospects for such a journal must have appeared dim to almost everyone but Lawson and his partner John F. Kelley. Presumably the two partners had to supply their own initial funding, for who else would have put money into so questionable a venture? If this line of thought is correct, then it suggests that Lawson must indeed have made good earnings in his baseball activities. Nothing is known about Kelly, but this can be said about his partner, who also was editor of the new magazine: Lawson had no firsthand knowledge of aviation, was not a pilot, engineer, or mechanic, had only a rather unpromising novel to his credit as a writer, and knew nothing about publishing or editing.c

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Original title	Fly Magazine
Simple title	Fly Magazine
Authors	Alfred William Lawson, John F. Kelley
Date
Countries	US
Languages	en
Keywords	airplane
Journal
Related to aircraft?	1
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