Howard Pixton won the 1914 Schneider Trophy race at Monaco and set the world speed record flying for Tommy Sopwith in a Tabloid seaplane. Howard's daughter, Stella, has produced a biography of this outstanding test pilot and pioneer aviator. The book is written in the first person as Stella took down the story as her father told it to her when he was 84 years old. The writing takes the reader back to the early days of aviation to give a real flavour of the atmosphere during those exciting times and of the personalities of the day known personally by Howard.
Howard flew for AV Roe in 1910, moved to Bristols in 1911 and joined
Tommy Sopwith in 1913. After the Schneider Trophy triumph Howard
continued competition and test flying for Sopwith leaving at the start
of WWI to join the government's new Aeronautical Inspection Department
(AID), a testing and inspection establishment at Farnborough. There he
continued his test flying for the AID and as a member of the Royal
Flying Corps. Up until the end of the war he had flown some 60 types
and seen the development of the aeroplane from the fragile and
capricious pioneering machines to the fully developed scouts of 1918.
The author is to be congratulated in constructing this memoir and in
collecting together the large number of well chosen photographs,
advertisements, documents and press cuttings reproduced in the book.
This outstanding book (ISBN 978 1 47382 256 6) will be published on
30th July by Pen & Sword Books at £19.99. It is worth every penny.