John Farley's memoir, 'A View from the Hover - my Life in Aviation', has been praised elsewhere in this Newsletter, but the Editor can't resist adding his two-penn'orth. This big book (428 pages) is far more than what the title suggests. It does recount selected parts of John's long career, which forms a foundation to the book, but it also provides an insight into the clear and logical workings of an engineering test pilot's mind. Every part of this work reveals to the reader truths about aeronautics that he had never considered or of which he had only, he now comprehends, a somewhat hazy and incomplete understanding.
    At the same time the book entertains (at one point reducing me to helpless laughter) and is a text book! Clearer explanations of lift, drag, wings, stalling and spinning would be hard to find. John also tells us about instrument flying, simulation and materials, general aviation and of course what it was like to fly the many types he tested over the years. What a tour de force. Buy the book, read it, and I guarantee you will return to it time and time again, finding just what you want because of the thoughtful way John has laid it out. It is a Flyer Book published by Seager in hardback at £32.95 (ISBN 978 0 95327 52 0 5) and somewhat cheaper in softback (ISBN 978 0 95327 52 5 0).