Fifty Years of Flying Fun

Rod Dean

ISBN: 9781909808270

Format: Hardback

Extent: 192 pages

Dimensions: 234 x 153mm

If anyone can write about the Hunter, it is Rod Dean. He was a Hunter pilot in the RAF from 1964 to 1981 (with 208 Squadron between 1969 and 1971) and later flew the type with both SOAF and as a civilian display pilot, making his last display in the Hunter at RIAT in 2002. Rod’s memoirs Fifty Years of Flying Fun first appeared in 2015, but remain an excellent record of the work hard, play hard (and drink hardened) Air Force of that era.

It covers, in a roughly chronological order, over fifty continuous years of flying. With an excess of 7,000 flying hours on 59 different types – and only one aircraft (Spencer Flack’s Mustang) with a working autopilot – Rod gives a clear, and largely humorous, insight into the operation of a cross section of piston and jet engine vintage aircraft and his undoubted fifty years of fun since the first solo on 19 March 1963.

The Vanishing Trick story comprises one chapter of the book (see the Hunter Anecdotes on this Website), but there is much more to interest Association members, including an account of how Rod came to lead 208 Sqn’s disbandment flypast at Muharraq in August 1971. The latter part of the book is given over to Rod’s civilian display flying career after he left the RAF in 1983, hence the sub-title From the Hunter to the Spitfire and Back Again.

Fifty Years of Flying Fun is not just a book for the aviation enthusiast, but for anyone wanting to learn about any aspect of flying history through the memoir of a man who lived through it all.

Published by

Grub Street

4 Rainham Close

London
SW11 6SS

Publication Date: 01 May 2015