Engaging, but a pinch of salt required
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Jay Rayner's book is an engaging read. It is insightful, well-written and informative, and that's exactly what you want a book of this nature to be. Except for one thing. Though it blazes itself as being well-researched, if you read additional material on the Star Dust - BSAA's most famed and ill-fated aircraft - you will discover that much of what Rayner claims about the airline and its crew is extremely conflicting. Extremely conflicting.
This book is very hard on BSAA's operations, record and its Australian (not British) pioneer aviator Don Bennett. You will be left with a solid impression that this was one of the worst airlines in history run by one of the most vain, ill-informed managers on earth. Further reading will provide a very different impression, though researched through the same sources. I would have liked Rayner's book on the Star Dust to be wholly accurate and therefore fascinating. Instead, I was very concerned that it left a large black stain on BSAA.
Read this book with this in mind and you will be left with an excellent literary experience. It is very well-constructed and actually quite exciting. But you would be in good company to follow it up with 'Fly With The Stars' by Susan and Ian Ottoway.
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Not what I expected but...
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P>I'm not sure exactly what I did expect but what I got is a well written, well researched and very interesting story of one plane, its history and the history of the early airline industry. It was a compelling read.
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A gripping book recounting two inter-twined factual stories
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Firstly,there is the baffling, sad mystery of a British passenger plane lost for 53 years in the Andes then the incredible tale of a British RAF war hero who went on to set up and run the most dangerous airline in the world. We are transported to a time immediately after the Second World War when flying was rather different than today. The author presents his well-researched and well-written material without sensationalising it, yet he produces a book that is difficult to put down.
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Extremely well researched analysis of historic air crash.
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Extremely well researched and very readable story of what is probably the greatest aviation mystery of all time. Jay Rayner has travelled extensively and conducted a large number of detailed interviews into this subject. The story is somewhat incredibly still evolving as the wreckage of the aircraft is slowly emerging from an inaccesable glacier high in the Andes. The book also covers in some detail the earliest days of long distance air travel and gives a very clear idea of what it must have been like to have suffered a journey such as London-Santiago just after WW2. It is in many ways an amazing story comprising history, moutaineering, aviation, journalism, and wreckless heroics. It would certainly be too incredible to be fiction! I greatly enjoyed it, Rayner's passion for his subject clearly comes through. One criticism, the pictures within the book are limited...
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