Bob Davy
As a child obsessed with aviation–and absolutely desperate to be a fighter pilot–Bob read with hunger and expectation, every work of fact or fiction and every autobiography of fighter pilots from WW2 and after. And yet he still didn’t know how to start a Merlin engine in a Spitfire, which rudder pedal to push during the take off run, how to use a gun sight to shoot down the enemy, how to land. ‘Technical’ novels were not the thing then.
All that changed when Patrick O’Brien’s novels about Napoleonic sea battles rose to fame, climaxing in 2003 when Peter Weir’s epic film, derived from the books, Master and Commander, took the world by storm and changed Bob's life.
He has since built a reputation for ‘putting people in the cockpit’ when describing the many aircraft that he had flight-tested for aviation magazines. He decided then and there to write a series of novels about fighter pilots in WW2 and beyond; to explain what it was like to fly and fight during this, the most important era in human history.
He used the life of Robin Olds as a template: he served as a fighter pilot in P38 Lightnings and P51 Mustangs in the Second World War and later on F4 Phantoms in Vietnam.
As part of the preparation for In Case of War Break Glass (Olds’ personal strap line) he flew a Spitfire. As a result of the success of the first book he had the opportunity to fly Robin’s very own P51 Mustang and became a close friend with his daughter Christina.
In Case of War Break Glass Parts One and Two
Have you ever wanted to know what it was like to fly a Hurricane or a Spitfire? Could you pull the trigger at the moment of truth? Could you kill someone? And then go back and do it all again?
The Few showed the world that Britain could fight back, they changed our hearts and minds. This story starts in the spring of 1940, with Flight Lieutenant Harper joining a Hurricane squadron before the beginning of the Battle of Britain.
Harper finds himself sitting on the line between courage and cowardice. He rises in seniority within the squadron, as new pilots replace his fallen friends. On the ground his life is also challenging, navigating romantic encounters and corresponding with his brother, who is training to join the ranks of the bomber crews taking the fight back to Germany.
Sometimes the aerial fights, survival stories and the pilot's personal lives might seem exaggerated. They're not, they didn't need to be.
In Case of War Break Glass: Part Two follows directly on from the cliffhanger at the end of Part One, continuing to follow Flight Lieutenant Harper.
Harper is trying to return to flight with the Air Transport Auxiliary, secretly praying to return to the frontline. His burns from his aircraft crash in the first book are holding him back.
