No aircraft is absolutely safe. This book is about Aviation, from learning to fly, becoming a test pilot, flight testing, demonstrating on some of the third world's worst airfields, then specializing in Avionics and finally joining the Board of the UK Civil Aviation Authority, helping to formulate the regulations that the author had spent so many years living by. Many stories are told, including flying with the legendary Howard Hughes when the world thought him a mad recluse, and testing many aircraft including all three V Bombers, an almost unique experience. The book, well illustrated, makes the point that flying is inherently risky, that regulations always try to quantify acceptable risk, that safety is a cost, and that test pilots have to sell their aircraft and should not try to make an aircraft safer than the rules require. It emphasizes the almost unbelievable changes in aviation in one working lifetime, whilst painting a picture of a much simpler world, now gone beyond recall.
- ISBN10 1447596145
- ISBN13 9781447596141
- Publish Date 20 July 2011 (first published 24 September 2005)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 16 January 2013
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Lulu.com
- Format eBook
- Language English