Customer Reviews
Engaging, but a pinch of salt required - By: Jessica Owers, 13 Sep 2008 
Jay Rayner's book is an engaging read. It is insightful, well-written & informative, & that's exactly what you want a book of this nature to be. Except for one thing. Though it blazes itself as being well-researched, if you read additional material on the Star Dust - BSAA's most famed & ill-fated aircraft - you will discover that much of what Rayner claims about the airline & its crew is extremely conflicting. Extremely conflicting.
This book is very hard on BSAA's operations, record & its Australian (not British) pioneer aviator Don Bennett. You will be left with a solid impression that this was one of the worst airlines in history run by one of the most vain, ill-informed managers on earth. Further reading will provide a very different impression, though researched through the same sources. I would have liked Rayner's book on the Star Dust to be wholly accurate & therefore fascinating. Instead, I was very concerned that it left a large black stain on BSAA.
Read this book with this in mind & you will be left with an excellent literary experience. It is very well-constructed & actuallly quite exciting. But you would be in good company to follow it up with 'Fly With The Stars' by Susan & Ian Ottoway.
Not what I expected but... - By: , 25 Oct 2003 P>I'm not sure exactly what I did expect but what I got is a well written, well researched & very interesting story of one plane, its history & the history of the early airline industry. It was a compelling read.
A gripping book recounting two inter-twined factual stories - By: chris@christophercook.com, 30 Apr 2002 Firstly,there is the baffling, sad mystery of a British passenger plane lost for 53 years in the Andes then the incredible tale of a British RAF war hero who went on to set up & run the most dangerous airline in the world. We are transported to a time immediately after the Second World War when flying was rather different than today. The author presents his well-researched & well-written material without sensationalising it, yet he produces a book that is difficult to put down.
Extremely well researched analysis of historic air crash. - By: , 22 Apr 2002 Extremely well researched & very readable story of what is probably the greatest aviation mystery of alll time. Jay Rayner has travelled extensively & conducted a large number of detailed interviews into this subject. The story is somewhat incredibly still evolving as the wreckage of the aircraft is slowly emerging from an inaccesable glacier high in the Andes.
The book also covers in some detail the earliest days of long distance air travel & gives a very clear idea of what it must have been like to have suffered a journey such as London-Santiago just after WW2.
It is in many ways an amazing story comprising history, moutaineering, aviation, journalism, & wreckless heroics. It would certainly be too incredible to be fiction!
I greatly enjoyed it, Rayner's passion for his subject clearly comes through.
One criticism, the pictures within the book are limited...
