Description

Title: Against the Sun – The Story of Wing Commander Roland Beamont DSO, OBE, DFC

Author: Lanchbery, Edward

Condition: Very Good

Edition: 1st Edition

Publication Date: 1955

ISBN: N/A

Cover: Hard Cover with Dust Jacket  – 270 pages

Comments: English Electric’s P.1, Britain’s first truly supersonic fighter, took the air for the first time on August 4th last year. The official announcement credited the P.1. with exceeding the speed of sound in straight and level flight. 

And the man who flew it was Wing Commander Roland Beamont, who in his flying career has been awarded the D.S.O and bar, O.B.E., D.F.C. and bar, has been mentioned in despatches, and was also awarded the American D.F.C. 

Before the P.1, Beumont had put the Canberra jet bomber through its paces. Taken on as English Electric’s chief test pilot in 1947, he watched the Canberra grow, stole the 1949 Farnborough show with an amazing display of its capabilities, and finally used it to turn the Atlantic crossing into a day-return excursion, a flight which won for Beamont and his crew the Royal Aero Club’s Britannia trophy for the year’s best performance in the air. Beamont began his flying career as a fighter pilot, first in the Battle of France and on through the Battle of Britain. After two years in Hurricanes, he was ‘rest’ at Hawker’s, where he tested the Typoon, Britain’s new fighter.