When thinking of airliners, one often forgets that the British had a very successful range of aircraft. I say had because the airliner industry as we know it has ceased to exist in the UK aside from building subassemblies and components for Airbus. To many this is a truly sad state of affairs, but it is also an opportunity to look back over the last 60 or so years to what was. This book by Stephen Skinner looks only at the prototypes of what is truly a wide range of aircraft. There is none of the usual airliner book 'eye candy' of colorful airline liveries and exotic locales. This is strictly the 'early birds' and some truly fascinating aircraft.

It starts during WWII when it was seen that the Allies would eventually be victorious and the British wanted to be at the forefront of a renewed interest in civil aviation. The Brabazon Comittee was formed to develop a strategy for taking advantage of the post war boom in flying that was anticipated. Some rather fanciful aircraft came from this; some of which were successful to some extent and others that were interesting one-offs. The author has chosen the date of the first flight to organize his work and this is an excellent way to go about it. The first plane in the book is the AvroTudor, an elegant tail wheel type airliner powered by four Merlin engines that saw very limited service. The last, of course, is the BAe 146, a most successful aircraft, but the last British designed airliner to be built and still being refined when British Aerospace decided to get out of the airliner business altogether in late 2001.

In between these two are scores of interesting aircraft. Some of them quite successful, like the Comet, Viscount, Dove, VC-10, BAC 1-11 and the Jetstream. Others went no farther than the prototypes with aircraft such as the Brabazon, Princess, and Rotodyne. Each aircraft is fully described with superb period photos and in some cases, images of where they are today. In all, it is a superb look at what the British airline industry used to be, some great aircraft and others that could have been great. A book I thoroughly enjoyed and I'm sure you will as well.

March 2009

Review book courtesy of Specialty Press , where you can order your copy of this and many other superb aviation and modeling books. Visit their website at the link above or call them at 1-800-895-4585

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