The Lightning Boys: True Tales from Pilots of the English Electric Lightning (The Jet Age Series)
Hardcover – September 20, 2011
Description
'A superb selection of over 20 first-hand Lightning stories, this is bound to be eagerly snapped up by fans of English Electic's astounding fighter.' Flypast "'An enlightening canter around the crew room. I recommend it as a good read both to aviators in general and to the Lightning fraternity in particular.'" Royal Air Force Historical Society Richard Pike became a flight cadet in 1961 at the RAF College, Cranwell, where on graduation, he was awarded the Dickson Trophy and Michael Hill memorial prize for flying. In the early stages of his forty-year flying career he flew the English Electric Lightning before converting to the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom. On leaving the Royal Air Force he became a civilian helicopter pilot. His duties took him to a wide variety of destinations at home and overseas including the Falkland Islands not long after the end of the Falklands War. His last assignment was in Kosovo helping to distribute emergency humanitarian aid on behalf of the United Nations World Food Programme. He and his wife live in Aberdeenshire. He is the author of several Grub Street titles including: Lightning Boys, Lightning Boys 2, Hunter Boys and Phantom Boys Volume 1 and 2.
Features & Highlights
- According to a recent international study, the Lightning is the fifth most popular military aircraft of all time. It has many thousands of devotees who are a ready market for this timely and entertaining book which, with over twenty individual stories from former Lightning pilots, relates the highs and lows, the dramas and the demands of those who operated this iconic aircraft from the sharp end.Tales include the recollections of an aerobatic display pilot, an implausible yet true account of telepathic communication, and an extraordinary episode when a Lightning pilot on an exchange program with the French Air Force became embroiled in a mid-air collision. An unverified yet probably genuine world record is revealed in one of the chapters.In addition to the original photographs that accompany the text, the renowned aviation artist Chris Stone (himself a former Lightning pilot) has provided a unique sketch as well as copies of some of his paintings. The style, scope and pace of the writing in this book will appeal to the general reader as well as to the enthusiast.
