Eject! Eject!

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Spitfire, Lancaster, and Tornado all followed the same format of using the often fascinating stories of those involved to tell a bigger story, and Eject! Lastly, as I began the book I thought that this would make for an excellent recommendation for my friend’s son-in-law who flies off an American carrier and is due home on leave at Christmas.

As the author has had to be diplomatic in some areas, feelings run deep and memories are long, the book has a feel of 'now it can be told' just not completely. John is the bestselling co-author of Tornado Down and author of many highly acclaimed epics, including Spitfire, Lancaster and Tornado, all of which were Sunday Times bestsellers. In Germany, Heinkel had fitted their turbojet-powered fight He-280 with a catapult seat escape system, and on January 13 1942, the Luftwaffe’s Wolfgang “Bombo” Schenck became the first man to use an ejection seat in an emergency.

Captured, tortured and held as a prisoner of war, John was paraded on television, provoking worldwide condemnation and leaving one of the most enduring images of the conflict. is fuelled by dramatic, deeply moving and previously unheard first-hand accounts by ejectees and their families. I'm not sure that we need all of the graphic detail of Vietnamese attrocities against US fliers, that was really the makings of another book altogether.

Nichol is perhaps at his best in his account of the early work of the Martin-Baker Aircraft Company, the pioneering British manufacturer of ejection seats, whose products – as of the date of publication – have saved 7,681 lives. During 15 years service in the Royal Air Force John Nichol served as a technician and, after being commissioned from the ranks, as a Tornado Navigator in both the Air Defence and Ground Attack roles. This rather begged the question of whether the human body could in fact withstand the force of the explosion.The story is chronological from the early days of the seats being developed- a ripping yarn in itself, with some fantastic characters testing them- and then moves forward through several aerial conflicts, and other incidents in between. before Monday 22nd May to be entered into The Tornado Lottery, a chance to win a colour printed large-format 4 x 6 feet banner of John Nichol's previous book 'Tornado'. I’ve read much of the author’s work, and while not wanting to discredit his earlier productions in any way, his more recent books have really stepped up to the next level as his writing style has evolved. Sadly, although I chose it because I was fascinated by modern ejection-seat technology , it was the human stories that achieved most impact on me.

He has made a number of TV documentaries with Second World War veterans, written for national newspapers and magazines, and is a widely quoted commentator on military affairs. Packed with interviews with aircrew who know exactly how it feels to 'Bang Out' from an aircraft at high speed, both in peace and in war, the book gives the reader a vivid sense of what that life-saving experience feels like, but also features the moving accounts of what happens next, from the viewpoint of both the crews and their families, who often have little or no information about whether or not their loved ones have survived. The fact that he’d never designed or built a plane and had never even flown did not seem to deter him.Please Note: By their very nature, all signed books will have been handled several times before they get to you. I had the notion,” wrote Martin, “that I wanted to design things and not be employed by anyone” – a fine ambition. I especially liked the way several airmen’s and navigator’s stories were interwoven through the book as it progressed. If I had a any criticism at all, it would be that the people who maintain these seats day in day out get short shrift- this is all about the occupants.

At its end I could only reflect on the nature of war and the risks we ask our pilots to take on and whether technology will advance so much that seat technology will be rendered obsolete with pilotless aircraft. begins with Nichol interviewing Lancaster, whose story serves as an important reminder that, as well as being a book about engineering, this is fundamentally a book about “what it means to be given another chance”. In 1928, he moved to Denham in Buckinghamshire, where he hung a sign on the front of an old linoleum factory, “Martin’s Aircraft Works”. Out of the 4 books in the group I thought this would be the one I least enjoyed, but it was fascinating and told the stories of each ejection featured very well.Packed with interviews with aircrew who know exactly how it feels to ‘Bang Out’ from an aircraft at high speed, both in peace and in war, the book gives the reader a vivid sense of what that life-saving experience feels like, but also features the moving accounts of what happens next, from the viewpoint of both the crews and their families, who often have little or no information about whether or not their loved ones have survived. It was partly due to the death of Squadron Leader William Davie, a 25-year-old test pilot who died after attempting to bail out of his Gloster Meteor in August 1943 – plummeting through the roof of a hangar at Farnborough – that prompted the Air Ministry finally to commission Martin to come up with a workable British system.