Captain de Havilland's Moth

The most iconic of all light aircraft, the DH60 Moth was the brain-child of Geoffrey de Havilland, visionary son of an angry and disappointed Victorian clergyman. A successful designer of military aircraft, Geoffrey dreamed of doing for aircraft what Ford had done for cars.

The emergence of his Moth in February 1925 marked the beginning of an important but neglected episode in British social history - the craze for flying which gripped a war-weary world for more than a decade. The most successful aircraft of its era, the Moth was the one in which people had the greatest adventures. And it was the Moth which showed that flying was safe, practical and, potentially, open to all.

True, many early Mothists were uber-privileged. The Prince of Wales had one, as did his brother, the Duke of Gloucester. Beryl Markham, who had affairs with both, learned to fly in a Moth. But Laura Ingalls, who did 980 successive loops in hers, Aspy Engineer, the Indian schoolboy who won the Aga Khan Trophy in his and Amy Johnson, the typist from Hull who flew hers to Australia showed that, to be a pilot, you didn't need to be a superhero or super wealthy. Just a little mad, perhaps.

Captain de Havilland's Moth brings to life a golden age in aviation and an astonishing cast of characters whose courage, determination and epic eccentricity is shown in the light of what it is actually like to fly these remarkable aeroplanes.

Captain de Havilland's Moth is a joy. Every chapter is chock full of extraordinary people, evocative places and often jaw-dropping adventures. Alexander Norman brings to life a golden era in aviation history in such a vivid and entertaining way... I wish I'd thought of it! Rowland White
A wonderfully affecting, highly entertaining, at times elegiac account of a legendary aircraft, and the colourful and courageous men and women who flew her John Nichol

Alexander Norman was a professional soldier, before taking a degree at Oxford University. He has written and co-written a number of top ten bestsellers, including Gurkha, with Colour-Sergeant Kailash Limbu. He also collaborated with the Dalai Lama on his autobiography, Freedom in Exile. An experienced Moth pilot himself, Alexander Norman's family was at the centre of the Moth craze between the wars. His grandfather, a great-aunt, two great-uncles and, subsequently, his father and two uncles were all Moth owners.

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