Enjoyed the book very much John; sadly reminded me of a few near misses and deaths in civil aviation, preventable and lucky.
My first very near miss was with a Tornado whilst practising stall patter with Joan Hughes - one of the ATA girls..it obliterated the ground view as the nose dropped.
I had a couple of notable ones (that I saw)..one was with a Lufthansa 747 in the Frankfurt hold who descended through our level ..I ducked and swore..the second was in leaving the Ekron hold into Zurich with a plump German who had a cigar in his mouth..I had been warned by a controlled ex Chicago that there would be a mid air in Swiss airspace a long time before. All covered up of course.
This leads me to the Tornado mid air passing through a narrow corridor..30 years on from when two of my course mates flying with ex military instructors had a mid air over the Isle of Wight..1970..even with my limited experience I thought it was stupid for the college to concentrate general handling in two small areas. So why did/does the RAF expect to avoid using the mark 1 eyeball at those sort of speeds.
My biggest surprise that Ash was wearing a synthetic flying suit! My twin instructor, Pat Courtney who had left a wing tip and aileron from his Hurribomber on a tree stump, had spied my nylon socks and warned me to never wear synthetic materials in an aircraft.
I write this with a compression fracture of T12 and some cracked ribs the result of hitting a 10m shear cliff in April…lucky to get away with it and 110% my fault..now to read Lancaster.