Empire of the Clouds

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A01=James Hamilton-Paterson
aeroplanes
Age Group_Uncategorized
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Author_James Hamilton-Paterson
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Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=KND
Category=KNDV
Category=WGM
COP=United Kingdom
de havilland
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_bestseller
eq_business-finance-law
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
handley page halifax
handley page victor
harrier jump jet
hawker
Language_English
PA=Available
Price_€10 to €20
PS=Active
softlaunch
vulcan 607

Product details

  • ISBN 9780571341481
  • Weight: 347g
  • Dimensions: 129 x 198mm
  • Publication Date: 05 Apr 2018
  • Publisher: Faber & Faber
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Paperback
  • Language: English
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In 1945 Britain was the world's leading designer and builder of aircraft - a world-class achievement that was not mere rhetoric. And what aircraft they were. The sleek Comet, the first jet airliner. The awesome delta-winged Vulcan, an intercontinental bomber that could be thrown about the sky like a fighter. The Hawker Hunter, the most beautiful fighter-jet ever built and the Lightning, which could zoom ten miles above the clouds in a couple of minutes and whose pilots rated flying it as better than sex.

How did Britain so lose the plot that today there is not a single aircraft manufacturer of any significance in the country? What became of the great industry of de Havilland or Handley Page? And what was it like to be alive in that marvellous post-war moment when innovative new British aircraft made their debut, and pilots were the rock stars of the age?

James Hamilton-Paterson is the author of Gerontius, winner of a Whitbread Prize; Seven-Tenths: The Sea and its Thresholds; Playing With Water; and most recently, of the wild comic trilogy Cooking With Fernet Branca, Amazing Disgrace and Rancid Pansies. He is also an unabashed fan of great aircraft.

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