Going Solo is a memoir by Roald Dahl, first published by Jonathan Cape in London in 1986, he eventually joined the war as a squadron pilot in the Royal Air Force, flying which British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–1940s that was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd for the Royal Air Force (RAF)?
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Going Solo Going Solo is a memoir by Roald Dahl, first published by Jonathan Cape in London in 1986. It is a continuation of his autobiography describing his childhood, "Boy". It tells about his voyage to Africa, describing the various strange people he meets. He was on a boat heading towards Dar es Salaam for his new job working for Shell Oil. He eventually joined the war as a squadron pilot in the Royal Air Force, flying the Tiger Moth, Gloster Gladiator, and Hawker Hurricane. He was one of the last Allied pilots to withdraw from Greece during the German invasion, taking part in the air Battle of Athens on 20 April 1941. After Greece fell to the Nazis, he went to the Middle East to fight Vichy French pilots after staying for a brief time in Alexandria, Egypt.
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Hawker Hurricane The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–1940s that was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd for the Royal Air Force (RAF). Although overshadowed by the Supermarine Spitfire, the aircraft became renowned during the Battle of Britain, accounting for 60 percent of the RAF air victories in the battle, and served in all the major theatres of the Second World War.
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Blackburn Skua The Blackburn B-24 Skua was a carrier-based low-wing, two-seater, single-radial engine aircraft operated by the British Fleet Air Arm which combined the functions of a dive bomber and fighter. It was designed in the mid-1930s and saw service in the early part of the Second World War. It took its name from the sea bird.
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Royal Flying Corps The Royal Flying Corps (RFC) was the air arm of the British Army before and during the First World War, until it merged with the Royal Naval Air Service on 1 April 1918 to form the Royal Air Force. During the early part of the war, the RFC supported the British Army by artillery co-operation and photographic reconnaissance. This work gradually led RFC pilots into aerial battles with German pilots and later in the war included the strafing of enemy infantry and emplacements, the bombing of German military airfields and later the strategic bombing of German industrial and transport facilities.
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Boulton &amp; Paul Partridge The Boulton & Paul P.33 Partridge was a single seat single-engined biplane fighter designed to an Air Ministry specification. One prototype was ordered and built for trials in 1928, but it was not put into production.
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Heinkel HD 39 The Heinkel HD 39 was a special-purpose cargo aircraft developed in Germany in the 1920s to distribute the Berlin newspaper "B.Z.". It was a conventional single-bay biplane with staggered wings of equal span, and a fuselage that nearly filled the interplane gap. The pilot sat in an open cockpit, and the undercarriage was of fixed, tailskid type with divided main units. The sole example of the type was built after Ernst Heinkel found out, by chance, that "B.Z." required such an aircraft and had ordered two machines from Albatros. Heinkel convinced publisher Ullstein-Verlag to purchase a third aircraft from his firm.
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Vickers Wellesley The Vickers Wellesley was a British 1930s light bomber built by Vickers-Armstrongs at Brooklands near Weybridge, Surrey, for the Royal Air Force. While it was obsolete by the start of the Second World War and unsuited to the European air war, the Wellesley was operated in the desert theatres of East Africa, Egypt and the Middle East. It was one of two planes named after Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, the other being the Vickers Wellington.
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Supermarine Attacker The Supermarine Attacker was a British single-seat naval jet fighter built by Supermarine for the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm (FAA). The type has the distinction of being the first jet fighter to enter operational service with the FAA. Like most other first-generation jet fighters, it had a short service life due to the rapid development of increasingly advanced aircraft during the 1950s and 1960s.
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Blackburn Dart The Blackburn Dart was a British carrier-based torpedo bomber biplane, manufactured by Blackburn Aircraft, which first flew in 1921. The Dart was the standard single-seat torpedo bomber used by the Fleet Air Arm from 1923 until 1933. A modified variant was also sold to Greece, where they served with the Greek Navy.
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British Aircraft Company Drone The B.A.C. Drone was a British ultralight single-seat aircraft of the 1930s.
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Blackburn Botha The Blackburn B.26 Botha was a British four-seat reconnaissance and torpedo bomber. It was built by Blackburn Aircraft at its factories at Brough and Dumbarton, as a competitor to the Bristol Beaufort, and entered service with the RAF in 1939. It was underpowered and was quickly withdrawn from operations.
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Sopwith 1½ Strutter The Sopwith 1½ Strutter was a British single or two-seat multi-role biplane aircraft of the First World War. It was significant as the first British two-seat tractor fighter, and the first British aircraft to enter service with a synchronised machine gun. It was given the name "1½ Strutter" because of the long and short cabane struts that supported the top wing.
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Sopwith B.1 The Sopwith B.1 was an experimental British bomber aircraft of the First World War. A single-seat, single-engined biplane, the B.1 was built by the Sopwith Aviation Company for the Royal Navy. Although only two were built, one was used for bombing raids over France.
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Avro 641 Commodore The Avro 641 Commodore was a British single-engine five-seat cabin biplane built by Avro in the mid-1930s for private use. A total of only six were built, including the prototype.
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Fairey Hendon The Fairey Hendon was a British monoplane heavy bomber of the Royal Air Force designed by Fairey Aviation in the late 1920s, which served in small numbers with one Squadron of the RAF between 1936 and 1939. It was the first all-metal low-wing monoplane to enter service with the RAF.
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Hawker Tempest The Hawker Tempest is a British fighter aircraft primarily used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the Second World War. The Tempest, originally known as the "Typhoon II", was an improved derivative of the Hawker Typhoon, intended to address the Typhoon's unexpected fall-off of performance at high altitude by replacing its wing with a thinner laminar flow design. Having diverged considerably from the Typhoon, it was chosen to rename the aircraft "Tempest". The Tempest emerged as one of the most powerful fighters of World War II and was the fastest single-engine propeller-driven aircraft of the war at low altitude. The propeller-driven Dornier 335 was even faster, but it had two engines.
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Gloster E.1/44 The Gloster E.1/44 was a British single-engined jet fighter design of the Second World War, developed and produced by the British aviation firm Gloster Aircraft Company. It is amongst the first jet-propelled aircraft to be developed and had been produced on an experimental basis.
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Nieuport B.N.1 The Nieuport B.N.1 was a prototype British single-engined fighter aircraft of the First World War. It was a single-engined biplane intended to replace the Sopwith Camel, but only one was built, being destroyed in a crash. The Sopwith Snipe was built instead to replace the Camel.
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Hawker Aircraft Hawker Aircraft Limited was a British aircraft manufacturer responsible for some of the most famous products in British aviation history.
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Handley Page Heyford The Handley Page Heyford was a twin-engine British biplane bomber of the 1930s. Although it had a short service life, it equipped several squadrons of the RAF as one of the most important British bombers of the mid-1930s, and was the last biplane heavy bomber to serve with the RAF. The aircraft was named for and first deployed at RAF Upper Heyford, near Bicester in Oxfordshire.
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Messerschmitt Bf 109 operational history The Messerschmitt Bf 109 was a German World War II fighter aircraft designed by Willy Messerschmitt and Robert Lusser during the early to mid-1930s. It was one of the first true modern fighters of the era, including such features as all-metal monocoque construction, a closed canopy, a retractable landing gear, and was powered by a liquid-cooled, inverted-V12 aero engine.
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No. 1409 Flight RAF 1409 (Meteorological) Flight was formed on 1 April 1943 to provide meteorological information for RAF Bomber Command and the USAAF. Equipped with unarmed de Havilland Mosquito aircraft, the crews of the Flight undertook long range meteorological reconnaissance flights until the end of the Second World War in Europe and continued in this role until 1946.