John Farley's new book
 

I'm glad John has succumbed at last and written the book we asked for. I have pre-ordered mine for delivery mid-December.

FLYER Shop - A View from the Hover (paperback)

Sales pitch from Flyer web site:

Pre-order John Farley's fantastic new book A View from the Hover: My Life in Aviation which will be published shortly by FLYER Books.

Packed full of lively accounts of John's days as a test pilot (for the Harrier and many other types) and rounded off with some great insights into how to improve your flying, this is a book which nobody who has any interest in flying or the history of aviation can afford to miss.

Get your copy ordered now (my sales pitch).

John kept that quiet!

Well done John for writing it, and everybody else for nagging him to do so.

My order for a copy will be in shortly.

G

There you go! "What did you want for Xmas?" said Mrs B - now I know!

Hope he had a good proof reader! Not of course that he would need that.

Well done, John.

It's cheaper from that well known river site. :E

Paid for it today - worth every penny.......

Sat in the 2 seater at Brooklands the other day........ remembering JF at Farnborough many years before ...... as they say these days - Respect! :rolleyes:

Naa, I'm going to wait for the film!!;)
(It's on order)

Rgds Dr I

anyone know if this will be imported to north america? our version of the river site doesn't have any planned release date...

I think that if you order from the UK site, although they'll charge you extra, they'll do deliveries outside the UK.

That said, I suspect strongly you might be better off ordering from the Flyer site linked from Yakker's post. I gather from conversations with another UIK based aviation publisher recently that RiverSite will list books from publishers who don't wish to do business with them direct (i.e. cut the wholesale prices), then source them via standard catalogues - slowing the whole process up considerably.

G

thanks: tried to add the book to my cart at the Flyer site but when selecting "rest of the world" it wouldn't let me. perhaps I'll phone them. all else failing I'll find another UK source that will ship across the pond. Thanks for the help.

I'm sure that I have read a book which John has written some time ago. can anyone enlighten me and remind me of the title of that one. Thanks

skiingman

If you PM me with your email address I'll pass it on to the office (I'm away for a couple of days). I'll make sure they email you with any postage costs etc.

Brgds

Ian

Amazon.co.uk: low prices in Electronics, Books, Music, DVDs & more works really well for any books you want to order / preorder from the UK SkiingMan, quick service and reasonable shipping costs for books you would never find stateside.

I use them all the time and have been very happy with their service.

John Farley's book is preordered from them as we speak.

Moderators please?
 

Might it be possible to arrange signed copies of the new book to be made available here (similarly to the TSR2 print) priced to include a donation to an appropriate charity?

That is interesting we (the publishers of the book) have not been in contact with Amazon, and they haven't called us either.

I would have no problem doing that and I'm sure that John would be happy to sign them. I don't want to breach any forum rules, so if a mod would like to pm me, we could discuss to see how this would be possible without crossing any lines.

Brgds

Ian

I don't know how Amazon sources their copy's.

Living in the States I find them to be invaluable for books unavailable or unheard of here.

I believe it to be through a wholesaler, at least for the UK, I assume they have some kind of internal system. I mentioned it only because as yet we've heard nothing and all of the books are in boxes about 15' away from where I'm typing this.

Best regards

Ian

Amazon use an independant resource, Neilsen Book Data, for any book not in their 'best seller' stock list, so it appears they have everything. They then, because of their buying power, beat the supplier down to low margins. If they can't, the book is effectively blacklisted on the site (the Amazon search engine 'cannot find it').

Amazon is convenient, but please support proper publishers where possible (especially in aviation where sales are relatively low), so we get more books like JFs.

I have e-mailed my son with the Flyer web page, e-mail headed 'Christmas is coming'.

I wrote a flying book recently, published by AFE - Amazon list it, and I understand that this is the arrangement by which they do so for mine. I gather from Jeremy Pratt (MD of AFE) that this annoys small publishers a lot - hence I'd agree with Fitter2 completely. Buy things like aviation books from the publisher or a bookshop actually stocking it where you can - it helps keep them in business, which we probably all want more than 50p off a book cover price.

G

I'm told that the one who must be obeyed ordered my copy, from the Flyer site, this afternoon. :ok:

If you have the luxury of buying the book you want locally, by all means 'support your local bookseller'

Bit silly to pontificate on the virtues of such when some of us overseas have no choice.

No, but you still have the choice of which online retailer presumably.

G

John Farley's book
 

Hi All,
Anybody know how I can get hold of a copy out here in Aus? I worked on the Sea Harrier at Boscombe Down back in the early 80s and would love to read John's story.
Regards,
Clive Tudge

Signings
 

How about some signings Up North, John?

Long awaited !
 

John is doing a signing at the Farnborough FAST museum tomorrow - Tuesday 9th - 14:00 to 17:00.

I hope you don't mind me mentioning this John !

I am in no way financially or otherwise related to J.F. or his publishers ( I understand Seagers are organising this one ) except that I had the honour to work with and for John at Dunsfold - a very tough act to follow as I've let more than one 'boss' know !

I am not a pilot, technical photographer.

Sorry about the late notice, my P.C. finally croaked - a phone call first might be a good idea for anyone travelling far but Seagers seem very friendly - self, Father & Uncle are all going, we all worked for J.F !

D.Z.

A lot of 'discussion' here on the merits or otherwise of various sources for books. Here is a place I use fairly often:

AbeBooks Official Site - New & Secondhand Books, New & Used Textbooks, Rare & Out of Print Books

Whilst it may not be relevant to John Farley's new book, I don't doubt that some of you will find it useful for other rarer and unusual stuff.

It is a portal for all sorts of book suppliers and is often the only place I can find out-of-print or similar books. I guess it works in a similar way to the 'Available from these sellers' link when Amazon perhaps don't have the item you want. The great thing is it includes loads of small dealers, all over the world, and whilst the focus is probably on second-hand books there are many new ones as well. And the new ones have often disappeared from the larger retailers, so you have a chance to get a copy.

I used the site to track down a very good second-hand copy of an out-of-print book (that had only first been published in 2001!) in a bookshop in California! The crazy thing is that this hard-cover book, with P&P, came to half of what some UK dealers wanted for their copies of the second-hand soft-cover version! I also had another book shop in Washington offer to go through their several copies of a book I was after, and put together the best dust-cover with the best hard-cover book and send it to me at no extra charge. So, you can get some really personal service and help support these dealers.

If you are UK based, like me, you may wish to tick the " UK First" box in the search requester on this site - that will put available UK-based sales at the top of the search results. As I have indicated above though, sometimes the best deals are not necessarily the ones closest to home.

Genghis, what was the title of your book?

My copy of JF's came a few days ago, it's a great book.

OG

Well that would be one way of losing what little anonymity I have left!

Seriously - check your PMs.

G

Well I have read the book, and enjoyed it. As I am exRAE and was involved with the Harrier development and Hermes trials it was good to read about the good old days. As a PPL John has certainly provoked some thinking about my own flying. Thanks John, when is the sequel?

Yakker, you asked John about a sequel. What topics do you/does anyone think he hasn't covered in this one?

I seem to remember a year from the time the last "Tooms" went back to the crabs ,?79,the 2 Seat Harrier G-VTOL,driven by one John Farley,together with a Kestrel with Harrier Hard Points,and a GR1 with a Sea Harrier Radar nose,were the some total of the then Fast Jet FAA establishment,which formed 799 Squadron.JF must have been flying all day and everyday Old Salts giving experience of things to come!I dont know how many trips "Jock Gunning" got!!!!!!!The 2 Seater was only on loan from Dunsfold,as there was nothing else available!!Defence cuts never change.

Hello all, first post for me here; vaguely on topic too!

I missed one of John Farley's lectures earlier this year, and would really like to attend one soon. Does anyone know what lectures he'll be making this coming year?

(I found out one takes place in April but it's at Lossiemouth which is a bit too far from Bournemouth to travel for one lecture! It's listed here: RAeS Conference and Events Department - Lectures)

Phil.

Phil,

John is giving a lecture to the Gosport Aviation Society on 21st April 09. The Society meet at Stubbington Snooker Club in Stubbington, Hants and is easy to find from M27 Junction 9.

Picked up a signed copy of his new book last evening at the above society meeting.

the Hooligan?
 

Before proceeding with the main question I'd like to ask why is John Farley's book not quite available at amazon.co.uk. It says it's out of stock which I thought it's a bit odd for a brand new book.

Had the pleasure of attending a lecture as a mechanical engineering student at the RAeS in about 1997-8 I believe by John Farley with a topic on VSTOL and vectored thrust.

Anyway my main question to Mr Farley is regarding 'the Hooligan' as detailed in Sharkey Ward's book on the SHAR in the Falklands. I believe he was Lt Cdr David Poole. I've always found the chapter on flying Phantom in Ward's book very interesting. At one point he says that when he was the senior pilot of 892Sqn Dave Poole returned to the squadron after his ETPS course (apparently that was in the early '70's) and he was able to beat Ward soundly in a fully developed slow speed scissors. Ward claims that Poole learned the tricks at ETPS. Was there an F-4K airframe at the time where one could experiment with slow speed maneouvring or was this just Poole's ability which Ward confused for ETPS trickery?:) Given his disdain for test pilots I guess that the lesson from ETPS (if indeed Poole learned the tricks there) served the frontline well since Ward then instituted a low level ACM programme with these lessons being practised regularly. I've searched around and found an FG1 airframe (XT597?) with the A&AEE at Boscombe Down. Is that the aircraft in question?

Also wasn't the same pilot (Poole) involved in a SHAR crash in the middle of the Falklands war while testing it back in Britain?

I'm trying to find it. Anyone got the ISBN number please?

Cheers,
mcdhu

I'm trying not to break any PPRuNe advertising rules here, but would like to be as helpful as possible without crossing any lines. We published the book and it then appeared on the Amazon site. So far Amazon has not been in contact, and we haven't sold any copies to any wholesalers. I have no idea how Amazon plan to get their copies. I assume that they'll build up a number of orders and then ask for a hefty discount.

If anyone wants to know where to buy it in the meantime pls PM me.

Best regards

Ian

Mine arrived from 'Flyer' - very promptly too. well done,. Waiting for 25/12 now.......................SWIMBO has locked it away.:{

Yup, I've just ordered mine from The Flyer - hope it comes before 25/12!!

Cheers all,
mcdhu

Mine too. http://209.85.48.8/1889/52/emo/saddy.gif

mcdhu - every chance! Email ack same day and dispatched evening of next, arrived next day. Excellent service, Flyer!