Terrific Book: 'A View from the Hover' by John Farley

[PR19_Kit]

No, not the Rotodyne book mentioned elsewhere, but one I bought while at the Hendon Show.

One of the book stands had an awesome display of many bank account reducing volumes, but the one that caught my eye was 'A View from the Hover' by John Farley, the famous Harrier test pilot. In paperback form it's £22.95 and in hardback it's £32.95 I think.

This is a fascinating yet very different book. It's actually written NOT to be read from cover to cover, and John actually says that in the introduction! He wrote it so the reader could dip into it anywhere they liked and come up with a interesting snippet from almost every page. Technically it's fascinating, especially to the engineers amongst us (like me.....) and I guarantee you'll learn something new from almost every reading.

Last year I was lucky enough to meet John Farley at a TV studio where we were both working on a documentary series about British engineering achievements (Yes Ye Doubters, there really were, and are some!!!) I recognised him as soon as I walked in and said 'Hello, you're John Farley aren't you?' (quick, wasn't I?) and he, seeing the 'Aeroplane' magazine under my arm replied 'And you must be a 'Total Aviation Person!' 

To those not in the know a 'TAP' was someone who regularly read the 'Straight and Level' column in 'Flight Magazine' and who was deeply immersed in the subject. I confused John then by admitting that I was indeed a 'TAP' but I was there to do some filming about railways! I spent around 20 mins. talking with him and he mentioned that his book was imminent, so I was very pleased to finally buy it.

[nev]

If he's the guy with the Brian May hair, I do remember him from a documentary a few years ago, and he did seem like a guy with a bunch of cool stories about flying the Harrier back in the day.

[Mossie]

I'll keep a look out for that one.  I'm quite a 'dipper', I read too slow to read the amount of books I have (tiny amount compared to some here) from cover to cover.

[kitnut617]

Good tip Kit, I'll keep an eye out for a copy myself, the Harrier being one of my 'most-off' kits I have (10 or 12 I think [in 1/72]).

I'm a bit of the opposite to Simon though, once I start a book I can't put it down and get through it quite quickly, then I'll re-read it a couple of times after that sometime later and find I couldn't remember reading some of it when I read it the first time