Books

I have had two books published so far. The most recent one, published in May 2024, is called “A Pilot’s Ups and Downs” and is a memoir of my career as an airline pilot with British Airways. After a few introductory pages of background I describe leaning to fly military style in the RAFVR, then my time in the Air Training College at Hamble from application to graduation. The bulk of the book covers learning to fly civilian style at College, a chapter on how airline flying works and is regulated, and then my time flying Trident and Tristar airliners as copilot all over Europe and Middle East, a chunk on flying twin turboprops around the Highlands and Islands, the Midlands and Germany, then the vast Boeing 747 worldwide.

My book can be ordered from any bookseller, ISBN 9781035819782 (paperback) or  
ISBN 9781035819799 (e-book)   or direct from
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd.
1 Canada Square,  Canary Wharf,  London E14 5AA.

I have recounted my experiences, whether dramatic, disappointing, exciting or amusing, during my varied career in British Airways. Some incidents occur within the cockpit, others in social interaction outside, and a few come from pilot folklore. I have omitted or changed the names of other crew members to avoid embarrassment or offence. I also describe visits to sights around the world, as travel interests everyone and draws people to aviation as a career.
I have added one professional pilot’s opinion on aviation topics in the news, the Hudson ditching, mysterious Malaysian disappearance and Alpine tragedy, and finish with my lifelong interest in designing model aircraft.

The first book was “Basic Aeronautics for Modellers”, published in 1996 by Traplet Publications. A second edition followed, containing some spelling corrections, a few new errors, and two brand new chapters. 
These new chapters were based on questions that I answered in my monthly column called “Aerodynamic Forum” that ran for 17 years from Jan 1996 to 2012 in the monthly magazine R/C Model World, also published by Traplet. The column answered questions from modellers all over the UK, and the world, and those questions prompted the inclusion of chapters on model structures and choosing a safe position for the Centre of Gravity for model aircraft in the Second Edition, published in 2002. ISBN 1 900371 41 3

I started with the absolute basics and avoided maths and equations. Chapter one is about the aeroplane’s environment, assuming no previous knowledge. I introduce words we use, like air, pressure, density, weight and mass, gravity, vectors. I have a reference to Newton’s laws, forces, vectors, inertia. I use simple diagrams and a few humorous cartoons to get the message across. Then in chapter two I describe in simple terms how wings generate our friend lift, and the enemy, drag. And by chapter 22 I have coaxed the reader along the path to where he or she can work out a safe Centre of Gravity position for most models, and understand why.

I’m now working on a novel in the “Alternative War” genre in which I speculate what might have happened if…... Spoiler alert, in the first couple of pages, a prominent British politician, the First Lord of the Admiralty, is assassinated in Barrow-in-Furness by Fascist agents on 26 March 1940.