By the Seat of My Pants: Memoir of a Pilot

Book excerpt: With a defective undercarriage, minimum fuel, lousy weather and relying on primitive instrumentation, how do you land a Boeing? 'By the Seat of my Pants: Memoir of a Pilot' is a deeply personal memoir of courageous determination. One man's life of flying adventures; occasionally perilous, often hilarious. An intrepid but humble man refuses to allow his dyslexia and poverty to decide his future. Captain Rosslee tracks aviation history captaining twenty-seven aircraft types from Gipsy Moths to Boeings. During WW2, as a Junkers Ju86 Allied bomber pilot, he contends with makeshift maps, primitive instrumentation and limited fuel over the inhospitable East African bush. He survives three WW2 forced-landings. Landing the first aircraft with passengers at Heathrow, he is later invited to meet Queen Elizabeth. And, with Comet1, doomed to disintegrate mid-air, pure chance keeps him alive. Over the Indian Ocean, two dead engines, the third about to die, where is his closest land?