My first novel is A SINGLE DARING ACT published on amazon.com on 6 July 2021. It is an adventure story set in the South American Republic of Paraguay before and during the Gran Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia. My main character is a New Zealander who is a lawyer and pilot who finds himself in Paraguay in 1932-1933, learns to love the country and its people and flies and fights in the first year of the war.
My first passion was aviation and four of my books are on aviation themes including two on aviation history, one on practical flying and a novel featuring an aviator.
Writing the non-fiction required a balancing process, enough technical detail but not too much. I put detailed technical content in endnotes and glossaries.
My father introduced me to aviation as he had been a fitter 2E (an expert on aero-engines) in the Royal New Zealand Air Force during World War Two. In 1944-1945 he was in Fiji working on flying boats, the PBY Catalina and the Short Sunderland. Occasionally he flew in the flight engineers position in the PBY and I remember him telling me that they had to stream drogues from the gunners’ blisters, to help manoeuvre when taxing. The commands were ‘haul in port’ or ‘haul in starboard.
He avoided doing anything heroic and learnt to fly in the early 1960s, I did the same when I was 16-17 years of age and often flew with him in the family Piper PA 22-150 Tripacer. This was an ugly but efficient four-seater and I have a soft spot for the design.
I did a commercial licence and instructor rating in the early 1970s and instructed at the weekends and the holidays from University where I was working on a BA and an LLB. I kept flying after I qualified and started practising law and aviation clients come to me because of my dual qualification and enhanced communication, I don’t need to be told the difference between a turn-and-slip indicator and an artificial horizon. I wrote HOW TO FLY A PLANE, to encourage more people to learn to fly.
My two non-fiction biographies are FROM POLE TO POLE: ROALD AMUNDSEN'S JOURNEY IN FLIGHT and UMBERTO NOBILE AND THE ARCTIC SEARCH FOR THE AIRSHIP ITALIA.
