The ASI does not seem ever to have been wound up and was still producing a magazine up to a year or two ago. I think it fell victim to a number of factors – the advent of the Internet as an immediate source of news and movements information and also a membership who wanted to receive but not contribute. Given the huge expansion in aviation activity and airport movements here since the 1970s and 1980s (when the ASI was in its heyday) the challenge of reasonably comprehensively monitoring and reporting on things has probably become much greater as well. I think the “officers” of the Society may continue to hold their positions but what they do in those capacities or whether, for example, subscriptions are still collected, I don’t know.

The alternative “Irish Air Letter” remains in being, with much the same team who set it up thirty-something years ago, and still produces a monthly magazine in the old A4 stencil format. It does a reasonable job of documenting the commercial and military scene, though it sometimes seems uncertain of what it is trying to be – a historical journal, a spotters’ mag or an industry magazine!