Dancing the Skies and Falling with Style

Book excerpt: At the dawn of the Jet Age, flying was romantic, exciting and exclusive. Drab post-war austerity surrendered to a less restrained, less politically correct, more vibrant era. Britain prospered with a newfound sense of optimism, business flourished and airlines expanded. Colin Fairdale, an insecure public schoolboy, stumbles into a career as a pilot with BOAC at the end of the Swinging Sixties. He is a boy in a man's world of hard-drinking, boorish wartime pilots and a naïf among wild, carousing cabin crew . The high-pressure, high-octane lifestyle plays a heavy toll on his relationships as he blunders through life. The terrorist attacks on New York heralded a more serious, rigid age. Everything changed, forever...