Bio: Captain Adrian Akers Douglas began his flying career at the RAF College, Cranwell, in 1962. During more than 10 years in the RAF, he mostly flew transport aircraft, including a tour of duty with The Queen's Flight. His final appointment in the service was as Aide-de-Camp to the Chief of the Air Staff.

After leaving the RAF, he joined Cyprus Airways, flying Tridents until the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 closed Nicosia airport, and destroyed most of the Cyprus Airways fleet. He then spent a year as a bush pilot in South Africa, by far the most exciting flying of his career.

Returning to the regenerated Cyprus Airways in 1976, he flew DC-9's, BAC 1-11's, Boeing 707s, and the Airbus 310. In 1995, he switched to the Group's charter division, Eurocypria, where (despite his libellous description of the breed to be found in this book), he became a Base Training Captain on the ultra-modern fly-by-wire Airbus A320. As well as flying ordinary passenger flights, he also trains and checks his colleagues in the aircraft and in simulators.

He has over 17,000 hours of flying, and (at least at the time of writing) fulfils the criteria for the term 'Excellent Pilot' (one with the same number of landings in his log book as take-offs).

Apart from flying, he cares passionately about the environment. He founded and ran Friends of the Earth (Cyprus), and then instigated the Laona Project, a sustainable development scheme in the Paphos District of north-western Cyprus (his short book of strolls, walks, and drives in the area - 'Discover Laona' - is available at bookshops in Paphos). He is a director of the Cyprus Conservation Foundation, which promotes environmental awareness at all levels, from primary schools to the government, and which runs the unique Environmental Studies Centre in the village of Kritou Terra, close to the beautiful, but threatened, Akamas Peninsula (the north-western tip of Cyprus). His profits from this book are donated to the Cyprus Conservation Foundation.

He has an environmentally hyper-active wife and two very lovely daughters. Home is a Cypriot village.