Description

Volume Two, despite its almost 500 pages length, only comprises two chapters! That’s what happens when you allow a great English character and expert free rein to explore a subject properly. Chapter 11 (the previous ten chapters were in the much smaller Volume One) is devoted to British Light Aircraft 1946-1970 in detail. Chapter 12 on projects and designs unfulfilled is a mere 39 pages though but includes things like the radical Essex Aero Sprite an ahead of its time plane but never built. These “might-have-beens” are examined individually and accompanied by profile drawings and specifications. The book ends with two appendices, one on light aircraft manufacturing tools and the other on the Rollason Midget Racer Competition of 1964. Then there is ‘Peroration’ where the author discusses with himself and reflects on his evidence and concludes that, it having gone the same way as coal mines, cotton mills and steam trains, that we (the Brits) no longer ‘need’ a light aircraft manufacturing industry in the way we did.