Many of us who have reached 'a certain age' have fond memories of travelling with our parents to holiday destinations on jet airliners - types that have now been consigned to history. For some of us, the excitement of taking off in a DC-8 easily outweighed the interminable afternoons sitting around pools and beaches. Were these machines really any more charismatic than the sleeker, quieter jets of today, or is it nostalgia playing with our heads? Either way, Tom Singfield's latest book is a welcome indulgence, feeding those memories with crisp colour images and plenty of data-led narrative. A follow-up to the well-received Classic Gatwick Propliners, this beautifully-illustrated account focuses on the jetliners of yore, from the Comet to the Boeing 747 and just about everything in between. As well as being a thoroughly good read, it's a pleasure just to skip through at random, allowing the eye to be drawn to such beautiful creations as the Caravelle, a smartly liveried Air Atlantis Boeing 707, and of course Braniff's brilliantly orange and memorably truncated Boeing 747SP.
展开▼
