Product Description

The story of an enterprise begun in a hangar on a deserted airfield in Wiltshire. The three men behind it are ex-RAF flyers. Against the background of a post-war blockade of Berlin, it tells of their attempts to get their machine on to the Airlift in time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #568655 in Books
• Published on: 1997-12-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Review
All of the high wattage excitement of The Angry Mountain. Fire In the Snow, etc. for a story of an attempt to get a plane on the Berlin airlift which reflects the obsessive urgency of Saeton, whose enterprise it is, as well as a considerable technical fascination. For Saeton, who had stolen the plans for the plane he is building, is beyond personal or legal scruple, and blackmails Fraser, a pilot, into joining with him and Tubby- his engineer. From the test flight and the crash of their plane, this follows Saeton's ingenious plan to accure another, as Fraser is forced to join the airlift, flies a plane into the ??Russian zone where his crew- and Tubby- bail out, and as he takes the stolen plane back to England for the substitution of Sacton's engine. But with the success of the plan, at the expense of Tubby's life, it is Fraser who makes a desperate attempt to save his friend, is willing to destroy himself in order to make amends.... A drama of a fanatic's tour de force which transmits all the driven determination and fevered intensity which leads to its mechanical fulfillment and moral fiasco, this again acts a standard for the action-adventure field. (Kirkus Reviews)

Customer Reviews

A wonderful book
I first read this book whilst serving my apprenticeship. I was reading it during a tea break in the machineshop in Ferranti's Cooper street school in Edinburgh. The author was telling about how the hero was turning a set of pistons for one of his aircraft engines. The bell rang and I went to wash my hands (really believing that they were dirty!) Years later I attended a literary lunch to raise funds for the medieval cow pasture in Ely, Hammond Innes was the guest. He told us about how he had started writing from being a journalist. I asked him how he could create such a realistic atmosphere when he hadn't been an engineer. He replied that the smell of coolant (a mixture of oil and water used when machining metal) was the the only thing he knew about machine shops. All engineers would believe that he was one too. He was right, I have remembered that tea break for almost fifty years.