Paper short abstract:

Examines the ideas and justifications surrounding the establishment of a number of specific airfields and aerodromes throughout Zambia in the 1920s and 1930s, and argues that fascination and not notions of control lie at the basis of this historical development.

Paper long abstract:

I am particularly interested in the various optimistic, and with the benefit of hindsight charmingly naive, ideas that members of the colonial administration and elite had with regard to aeroplanes and the possibilities of flight in colonial Zambia. My paper deals with the schemes and many pies in the sky that developed as a result of this fascination. In particular I examine the ideas and justifications surrounding the establishment of a number of specific airfields and aerodromes throughout Zambia in the 1920s and 1930s. Theoretically the paper deals with colonial notions of control and the role of aircraft within this, and suggests that romantic imaginings of burgeoning flight and not colonial discipline triggered the passion for aircraft and all things attached thereto in colonial Zambia.

The paper is based on extensive archival fieldwork carried out in archives and museums in Zambia, South Africa, and Great Britain, as well as field visits to a number of the airfields and locations dealt with in the paper