W. David Woods

David Woods studies and writes about the nuts and bolts of the Apollo programme, an interest that stemmed from being lucky enough to witness the Apollo missions on TV as a child. He created the "Apollo Flight Journal"; an annotated transcript of the missions that owes much to the tremendous Apollo Lunar Surface Journal. This project let him develop an extensive knowledge of how the missions were run from the point of view of the crews. It also gave expression to his ability to explain complex technical systems and concepts in a easy-going, approachable style.

His first book, 'How Apollo Flew to the Moon' (HAFTTM), now in its second edition, is a good all-round book on Apollo technology that has been highly praised by Apollo fans. It will appeal to anyone who is interested in the subject at any level.

Three books from the Haynes stable, authored by David, take a technical peek into well known space hardware; The 'Lunar Rover Owners' Workshop Manual', co-written with Chris Riley and Phil Dolling, came out in 2012, the 'Gemini Owners' Workshop Manual', co-written with David Harland, was published in early 2015, and the 'Saturn V Owners' Workshop Manual' appeared in 2016.

David talks about HAFTTM and tells stories from its pages in two audio podcasts recorded for Omegataupodcast.net; numbers 83 and 97, which together comprise over 4 hours of conversation on Apollo. Additionally, in number 176, he discusses the Gemini spacecraft.