Teach for the Sky

[Hood]

Teach for the Sky is now available from Crecy.

Teach for the Sky is the story of the post-war training aircraft of the RAF, Fleet Air Arm and Army Air Corps. It covers the complete range of basic, advanced, operational conversion and aircrew trainers from the late 1940s to the present day. These include aircraft as the Chipmunk, Prentice, Balliol, Jet Provost, Varsity, Gnat, Tucano and Hawk, as well as many design studies. Helicopters are also included (the gliders of the Air Training Corps cadet organisation are not).

Drawing on research in company and government archives, the book describes the technical developments and the politics of the planning and staff requirements behind them, including the evolution of the training organisation and the training syllabus.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Good work, I'll try and get a copy for Christmas. Amazon AU says:

 

[GTX]

Ordered

 

[kaiserd]

Ordered a while ago…..

 

[uk 75]

I got mine from the publisher and can recommend it highly.

 

[CJGibson]

Congratulations to James for Teach for the Sky being 'Book of the Month' in the January issue of Aeroplane.

Chris

 

[kaiserd]

Received my copy in the post, real high quality book, very much recommended.

 

[Antonio]

Could you please post the contents page?

Thanks in advance

 

[Hood]

Could you please post the contents page?

Thanks in advance

 

[elmayerle]

Gorgeous and superb book, well worth the money. I could wish for a bit more about Hawker's earlier P.1127 trainer studies, prior to the Harrier T.2, but that's really the only nit I can pick.

 

[Hood]

I must admit I was surprised that there weren't more P.1127 trainer studies but it seems to be a case of getting down and designing the finished article and everything working out as planned. I guess with all the experience they had with the airframe that they knew pretty well what would work and what was possible.

 

[elmayerle]

I read the part about the revisions to the Tucano for bird strike requirements and such and had to chuckle. What was at the time Raytheon Aircraft had to do much the same with the PC-9 to produce the T-6 Texan II. From the firewall aft, the lines are the same but the structure is all new. Forward of the firewall, you have new structure to deal with a more potent engine.

 

[Hood]

Yes the parallels of AST.412 and JPATS made struck me while I was writing it, those requirements made the EMB-312 and the PC-9 much better aircraft due to the stringent bird strike and fatigue limits called for.
It quickly turned out that buying off the shelf in reality meant taking that product and then redesigning most of it. But the end results of Super Tucano and PC-9M/Texan have sold very well, so really both manufacturers gained a lot from the experience.