Brilliant new book on the era

[maltadefender]

This weekend I happened to spot a review in the Sunday Times of a book called Empire of the Clouds by James Hamilton-Paterson. Looked rather special so I bought it on Amazon for fractionally more than half price with free postage and it arrived on Tuesday morning. Yesterday I awoke with my insides turned to jelly by a very shoddy lamb rogan josh and as a result spent the day sweating, shivering, groaning - and reading said book. I found it completely riveting and woke up extra early this morning to finish it before returning to active life.

It's hardly a detailed technical analysis of Cold War aviation but it's a very emotive work on how the writer, born in 1942, had his illusions about British air supremacy and technical achievement gradually shattered set against the story of the aircraft industry in the 1950s. The author is cross about that, about the squandering of our engineering talent and the many hard-luck stories among test pilots, designers and designs themselves. But he's also full of admiration and very vividly brings to life his youthful passion and excitement for attending any and every airshow possible, what it was like to hear the sound barrier get broken overhead, the allure of the V-bombers and the spectacle of a dozen-or-so Lightnings performing in unison.

Cold War aircraft aren't generally my thing and while I don't think this book added a lot to my rudimentary understanding of the types of the era it has taught me a lot about what they meant to the RAF and to Britain in their time, the sacrifices that were made to build and fly them - and why every spare penny should be devoted to keeping our last Vulcan alive!

It's worth the asking price for the cover art alone, which has brightened up my bookshelf no end!

[Potato Pete]

Saw that in the window of Waterstones as I dashed past. l know what you mean about the cover art work - absolutely brilliant

Pete

[pigsty]

There's something odd going on around that Vulcan's centreline. Any guesses?

[stevehnz]

Olympus (TSR2?) test bed.

Steve.

[max stafford]

Olympus (TSR2?) test bed.

Steve.

In any case, the cover is superb and it's got more than a hint of the Dan Dares about it! On chapter 2 right now - cracking read, Grommit!

Dave.