TESTING AEROPLANES in WARTIME

Signed on the title page by

Air Commodore Allen Wheeler CBE

GT Foulis & Co Ltd. First card cover edition 1963.  243 pages.

Fine condition trade paperback with stiff card binding with maps as endpapers. Clean, bright and tight. An excellent example of this scarce book.

This is a record of the work of test pilots in wartime; testing fighters to destruction, flying bombers into barrage balloon cables, testing captured enemy aircraft and the development of troop carrying gliders and the first jet aircraft and there is no-one better qualified to tell it.

Allen Wheeler was commissioned in the RAF in 1925 and trained as both an engineer and pilot before attending Staff College in 1933. During the Second World War he commanded the Performance Testing Squadron at Boscombe Down and the Experimental Flying Department at Farnborough.

Later he was involved in development flying for the airborne forces before the invasion of Sicily, and he commanded RAF Fairford during the Normandy landings. Post-war, he commanded RAF Cyprus and the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment at Boscombe Down.

In 1947 he became the Shuttleworth Trust’s first Aviation Trustee, holding that position until 1980.  He also bought the Spitfire 1 AR213 (G-AIST) in 1947 which starred in the Battle of Britain movie and is a stalwart of the air show circuit.  In a thirty year career he flew over 300 types of aircraft ranging from a 1909 Bleriot to a Hunter in which he went supersonic in 1954. He died in 1984.

An interesting book that covers a wealth of flying incident for anyone interested in aviation. Especially scarce signed by the author.