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Old 9th Jan 2008, 18:42
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davejb
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: St Annes
Age: 69
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Winged Victory - excellent, as is Saggitarius Rising.
Having devoured Biggles in my formative years (I pick the odd one up for nostalgic reasons, very slowly). 'To The Last Man' by Jeff Shaara is a WW1 novel that includes the air war, and is well worth a read - I also think Derek Robinson's WW1 novels, 'Goshawk Squadron', 'War Story' and 'Hornet's Sting' are very entertaining...like his 'Piece of Cake' there's an attitude that will infuriate those who remember the chaps as 'stout fellows all' whilst anyone who has actually been on a squadron will recognise that characters like 'Moggie' are far from exceptional.

Back in, ooh 1975 or so, prior to mt RAF career, I worked at a book supplier - a midway point between publishers and libraries, and got to read the stock... a series of 3 or so WW1 flying novels, with a slightly blundering hero who tended to do things like stall his 'bus' and accidentally thereby knock the upper plane off Werner Voss' triplane, came out - the character was called Bully or something like that... anyone who can suggest titles/author please chip in, I'd quite like to see what they look like from my current perspective.

Nothing against WW2 or modern day - I doubt I'm alone in being slightly in awe of those who discovered you could deliberately spin a Camel whilst sitting in a Martin-Baker Mk0 from the Harrod's garden furniture range surrounded by inflammable material.

Dave
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