Alex Henshaw
Alex Henshaw
Alex Henshaw
Alex Henshaw
Alex Henshaw
Alex Henshaw
Alex Henshaw

Alex Henshaw

A flying legend

Regular price$123.00
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Author Compiled by Michael Turner
ISBN: 9781910505502

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This book is a unique collaboration between flying legend Alex Henshaw and artist Michael Turner, blending paintings, photographs and the subject’s own narrative into a captivating celebration of his remarkable life in the air from 1932 to 1948. There were three phases to his flying: his headline-making competitive exploits pre-war, culminating in a London-Cape Town-London record that still stands; his vital war work testing aircraft, first for Vickers-Armstrong at Weybridge and then for Supermarine at Castle Bromwich; and his post-war activities throughout Africa. Each significant episode of those years has its own chapter, from learning to fly in a de Havilland DH 60 Gipsy Moth to a final long-distance African trip in a Miles Gemini. This is a very special book that all aviation enthusiasts will treasure.

• Touring and racing (de Havilland Leopard Moth): “We both shouted with delight when the waves pounding the sheer cliffs of the Isle of Man first showed up, and we did a ninety-degree turn over the lighthouse to cross the finishing line at Douglas.”

• Baptism of fire (Arrow Active Mk1): “I breathed a sigh of relief when the inferno passed under my feet, so close that I could hear the flames crackle and roar like a power-driven forge.”

• Taking a ducking (Miles Hawk): “The instant the aircraft touched the water it was like hitting a solid concrete wall. I shot from my comfortable seat like a rocket.”

• Into war (Vickers-Armstrong and Supermarine): “I was no stranger to the sea and all its various moods, but I had a great deal to learn when testing aircraft in turbulent conditions of high winds and foaming waves.”

• Testing years (Spitfire and Lancaster): “I was making notes on my knee pad as I dived steeply through a shallow layer of stratus when suddenly oil and glycol spewed over the windscreen, with the engine vibrating so severely that it could wrench out of the frame at any second.”

• Crocodiles at dusk (de Havilland Dove): “The possibility of crashing on top of impenetrable jungle with no hope of rescue or of avoiding the swarms of ants, or even worse to land on one of the numerous sand islands in the middle of a crocodile-infested river, was something I dared not contemplate.”

Format: 297x347mm hardback (landscape)
Page extent: 160
Illustration: 30 paintings and drawings, 315 photographs

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“I knew this book was going to be good but it’s a true masterpiece – the best book in my collection.” Richard Noble

Customer Reviews

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Richard Scott
Any aviation enthusiast should not hesitate. Just buy it!

This very fine book is a fitting tribute to one of Britain's most exceptional pilots. In my humble opinion, it's a tragedy that Alex Henshaw - just as that equally exceptional (some would say more so) pilot Eric Brown - never received a knighthood. Alex Henshaw fully warranted it for his Cape Record flight of 1939 which stood for so long, let alone his incredible wartime flight-testing work at Castle Bromwich. The book is large and heavy with the extensive text supplemented by the reproductions of Michael Turner's terrific paintings. Michael somehow manages to bring an atmosphere of extreme realism to his work which is often missing in other hugely talented aviation artists' work. Although expensive, this book can be very highly recommended. First rate service from Evro, my own totally mint copy being very well-packed and delivered efficiently. It's just a shame that the book could not have been printed in Britain.

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