TIME'S first issue, dated March 3, 1923, included an Aeronautics section. Despite the aviation industry's youth, there was no shortage of news. Items:

-- A device praised by an enthusiastic Thomas Alva Edison as "the first successful helicopter" set a record at McCook's Field in Dayton by remaining aloft for two minutes, 45 seconds.

--The British Air Ministry was building the first "Aerial Dreadnought," or seaplane.

--French Pilot Sadi Lecointe set a new world speed record (averaging 233.01 m.p.h.) over a four-kilometer course.

-- Franklin D. Roosevelt and Marshall Field were among a handful of businessmen planning the first commercial "airship" line between Chicago and New York.

News of the aerospace field is no longer confined to one section of the magazine, but receives continuing coverage in a number of departments. In April, TIME did a cover story on the industry's difficulties. Last week we reported on the Paris Air Show, and this week Business carries an account of a ride in the new Anglo-French Concorde. TIME has also come to be a catalyst for aviation ideas beyond the printed page. Periodically we bring to gether industry leaders, Government officials and others to exchange views and examine new developments.

Such meetings give top figures in the field a rare opportunity to compare notes. In 1969, 150 executives attended the TIME/ 747 Conference in Seattle, where most of them got their first glimpse of the awesome jumbo jet. The following winter TIME flew a similar group to Bristol, England, and then to Paris for a peek at the Concorde and a seminar on the future of the SST.

Last week we continued the tradition by inviting 175 aviation leaders and ob servers from the U.S., Europe and the Middle East to the TIME/Superjet Conference at Deauville, France. The group, hosted by Time Inc. President James Shepley, heard expert appraisals of aviation prospects and problems, then went to the Paris Air Show. Among the Government officials participating were U.S. Transportation Secretary John Volpe, Federal Aviation Administrator John Shaffer and Civil Aeronautics Board Chairman Secor Browne.

At the air show, America's mammoth C-5A Galaxy challenged the Soviet showstoppers for attention over the tarmac of Le Bourget Airport.

Volpe reminded the TIME conference of another kind of challenge. Next year, he said, the U.S. will hold a transportation exhibition of its own at Dulles Airport near Washington, D.C.

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