Imperial Airways - From Early Days to BOAC - Softcover

Ord-Hume, Arthur W. J. G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1840335149 ISBN 13: 9781840335149

Publisher: Stenlake Publishing, 2010

Synopsis

The very first book in our brand new series entitled "British Aviation History in Old Photographs" with an anecdote filled narrative from Arthur W. J. G. Ord-Hume. A fascinating time-line from the days when air travel still held the promise of romance.

About this title

From the Author:

I write about a time when one could telephone for an aeroplane to take you somewhere, go and climb into it and be flown by your own commercial pilot. If you were flying abroad, before walking out onto the paved stone apron and climbing into your machine a friendly Customs man would have cast an eye over your valise, marked it with a discreet chalk cross, smiled and called you 'sir' and wished you a pleasant trip! This was the age when it took ten minutes to get from the airport's free car park into your airliner and be whisked into the sky by a friendly crew who almost always came and chatted with you during the flight.

Today, we have 21st century air travel where you need at least two hours to get from the car park into the euphemistically-named departure lounge. Here compulsory searching and checking, X-raying, metal-detecting, finger-printing and iris scanning, personal data divulging interrogation and scrutiny carried out by an independent, humourless bunch of tough-guys, exhausts you before you ever get as far as the Duty-Free.[...]All this is conducted with an ungracious air that implies that you ought to be grateful he hasn't availed himself of the authority he probably has to have you personally confiscated along with your pocket knife, bottle of cough mixture and silver pipe-smokers' companion!

About the Author:

Aeronautical engineer, aircraft designer and aviation historian Arthur W. J. G. Ord-Hume is the Director and Senior Archivist of The Aviation Archive, an extensive collection of photographs and printed ephemera chronicling the development of British-built aircraft and British aviation technology from the end of the 19th century to the 1970s. While generally aimed at recording the growth and development of British civil flying and the civilian light aeroplane, the archive concentrates on specific aspects, such as amateur-built aircraft, club, sporting and private-owner aircraft and the technical development of airframe and engine technology. Separate divisions trace the development of the seaplane, amphibian and flying-boat, and a further section covers inter-War British-built commercial transport aircraft. There is a small related Royal Air Force section devoted to aircraft that are civilian-derivative and an extensive reference library is also maintained relative to the period on which The Aviation Archive is focused.

About this edition

• Publisher: Stenlake Publishing
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1840335149
• ISBN 13: 9781840335149
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 112