Bio: Colin Hilton first became aware of aeroplanes from the Airfix models hanging from the bedroom ceiling, like mobiles suspended above the cradle. He consolidated this interest by looking up at the skies and listening to communications from over Strumble Head, where 707s and DC-8s departed these shores for North America. He also bought books of registrations published by Ian Allan, visiting Speke and Ringway to underline the aeroplanes dropping in ~ thanks to Brian Robinson. These included piston-engined Dakota DC-3s belonging to Dan Air, as well as Viscounts from British Eagle, some of whose pilots he joined on the flight deck thirty years later. Among his earliest flights was one around Lands End in a de Havilland Dragon Rapide, at a cost of fifty pence. He learned to fly (though little else) at university and eventually eschewed the office to punch buttons on autopilots instead. His next book describes his attempts to build and operate a flying car, in time for the Wright Brothers’ centenary.