David Montgomery Aircraft 3-View Drawings Collection

Collection

Identifier: 2010-10-30

Contents of the Collection

The David Montgomery Aircraft 3-View Drawings Collection is an extensive compilation of orthographic-projections (three-views), profile drawings, cut-away drawings (interior arrangements and construction) in both black & white and color, depicting about 4,000 aircraft organized alphabetically by manufacturer.

The collection had its origins as a teenage “scrapbook” with systematic development beginning in 1990. As of January 2008 the material consisted of approximately 17,000 pages held in 182 three-ring bingers, representing over 4,000 different aircraft. Montgomery initially compiled the drawings from Model Airplane News and Air Trails, and after his military service he began to amass a near complete run of Air International. Additional titles mined for drawings include: Model Airplane International, Scale Aviation Modeler and Flight and other publications originating in the U.S., England, France, Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Russia (and the former USSR), Romania, Japan and other countries. Additional sources include the libraries of the National Air & Space Museum and the San Diego Aerospace Museum as well as private collections in Sweden, Romania and the United States.

The drawings are not originals, but rather photocopies for the most part formatted to a consistent size (177mmx228mm = 6-3/4” x 9”) and mounted on 8-1/2”x11” paper. Cutaways and certain large format plan-view drawings are formatted to consistent 10”x14” size and mounted on 11”x17” paper. To the extent possible, each drawing is labeled as to aircraft manufacturer, designation, type and to first flight date. Additionally, each drawing is sourced as to artist, publication (books and journals), date, and page and to percentage relation to the original page.

The presentations of the approximately 4,000 different aircraft vary in both quantity and quality. Some drawings are very basic; other are highly detailed. Almost half of the individual aircraft are represented by only one page while a few aircraft are extensively covered.

Dates

Creation: 20th Century

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research and is accessible in the Dahlberg Research Center by appointment. For more information contact us.

Conditions Governing Use

The Museum of Flight (TMOF) Archives is the owner of the physical materials in the archives and makes available reproductions for research, publication, and other uses. Written permission must be obtained from TMOF archives before any publication use. TMOF does not necessarily hold copyright to all of the materials in the collections. In some cases, permission for use may require seeking additional authorization from copyright owners. Consult repository for more details.

Biographical Note: David Montgomery

David Christopher Montgomery (1940-2021) was a Professor of History Emeritus at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah where he served from 1970, formally retiring in 2002 after thirty-two years. During this time he was Coordinator of the Near Eastern Studies Program from 1978 to 1985 and from 1988 to 1990 was the Graduate Coordinator of the Department of History. He taught World History, Near Eastern and Central Asian History and occasionally the Turkish language. He received his Ph.D. from Indiana University in 1971, where he studied Russian and Asian history as well as the Russian, Turkish, Uzbek and Mongolian languages. Montgomery previously served in the U.S. Army (1961-1963).

Montgomery had an interest in the Near East, Central (Inner) Asia and Aviation History. He lived for two years in West Asia: one year in Ankara, Turkey from 1966-1967 on a Fulbright Grant, and a total of one year in Tashkent, Uzbekistan (three multi-month stays during 1969, 1977-1978 and 1982) on grants from the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX). He researched various aspects of the cultural history of the Uzbek Turks who live in the Soviet-Afghan border area and are the largest non-European ethnic group in the Soviet Union. He was the major data contributor to a recently published Uzbek-English dictionary. He published one book and thirty-four other items about the peoples along the Asian and Near Eastern borders of the Soviet Union. Montgomery also had an interest in military history, both the political and diplomatic aspects as well as the technical and tactical/strategic aspects.

While retired, Montgomery still engaged in history activities: mainly, a documentation project for source materials relating to aviation history, and occasionally an “informal” bibliography of materials about the “End of the World in Film, Fiction and Fact”.

Montgomery was born and raised in the Chicago, Illinois area, although he lived most of his life in Utah. He was married to his first wife, Lynda Crane, until the couple divorced in 1975. He married to Jeanne V. Emmett (d. 2018) of Washington, D.C. in 1976. The couple had seven sons. David C. Montgomery died on July 19, 2021 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Extent

24 Cubic Feet (60 document boxes)

Language

English

Additional Description

Overview

David Christopher Montgomery was a Professor of History Emeritus at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah with interests in Near Eastern history and languages and military and aviation history. The collection is an extensive compilation of orthographic-projections (three-views), profile drawings, cut-away drawings (interior arrangements and construction) of about 4,000 aircraft.

Arrangement

Originally organized by country of origin, the materials were reorganized alphabetically by manufacturer for ease of use and consistency in organization in relation to other collections.

Accruals

No further accruals are expected.

Existence and Location of Copies

Photocopy-quality scans of the drawings are in the Collection Information folder. Rescanning is necessary to bring files up to our current digitization standards.

Processing Information

Originally housed in vinyl 3-ring binders, the binders were disassembled for preservation purposes and the contents were transferred to acid-free folders and document boxes. Original section dividers from the binders are in the folders. Originally organized by country of origin, the materials were reorganized alphabetically for ease of use. The binders had a couple of different numbering systems that had been used over the years and those numbers have been included in content notes for each box.