Aviation Including Airships

Biggles in The Cruise of the Condor – Capt. W.E. Johns

The Cruise of the Condor was one of the first Biggles in the 1930’s. This edition by Thames mid 1950’s.

Octavo, 247 pages (a lengthy Biggles) in very good condition in a nice dust jacket albeit with a chip to bottom front.

Biggles and his cohorts use an amphibious aircraft in Brazil seeking treasure and danger – a normal day for Biggles.

Biggles in Brazil – exciting adventures

$25.00

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Biggles in Borneo – Capt W.E. Johns – First Australian Edition 1946

A first Australian edition of a scarce early Biggles with its original dust jacket – we emphasise original as some are sold with colour photocopies these days – we find that all a bit naff.

Published in 1946 by Geoffrey Cumberledge for Oxford University Press, Melbourne. The UK edition came out during WWII in 1943. Octavo, 183 pages, toned a bit still on the war paper, aged to top etc, but not a bad dust jacket at all, which makes the book. A good and collectable copy.

Subtitled …A “Biggles Squadron” Story of the Second Great War. Having just proved invaluable in the “Battle of Britain” the squadron find themselves in the heart Borneo where they set up an aerodrome unknown to the Japanese – they downs ships and rescue prisoners … the aerodrome is eventually taken over by the Royal Australian Airforce.

One of the scarce Biggles in its jacket and with a handover to the Aussies.

$70.00

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Sky Pilot’s Last Flight – K Langford Smith

First edition, published by Angus and Robertson, Sydney in 1936.

Octavo,250 pages, blue cloth covered boards, slightly canted and a few innocent marks internally. Illustrated throughout from period photographs.

Super Australian aviation rarity and the author’s experiences flying in Arnhem Land in Australia’s extreme north. Flying in and out of Roper River Mission, Groote Eylandt, Mataranka and Goulburn Island. Written in an easy story telling manner – Idriess like is what we call it.

Sky Pilot in the Far North in the early 1930’s

$65.00

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Mysteries of the Bass Strait Triangle – Jack Loney

A first printing 1980 of shipwreck expert Jack Loney’s work on the deadly Bass Strait Triangle.

Not just the ships lost but also some early aeroplanes disappeared.

UFO’s are more frequently seen in this area than anywhere else in Australia.

The photograph of the weird large blobs of light emerging from the water are shivering stuff.

Softcover, 112 pages, thoroughly researched as expected of the author and well illustrated

Not to be read on the Ferry!

$25.00

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The Flight of the Small World [Ballooning Across the Atlantic] – Eiloart and Elstob

First edition published by Hodder, London in 1959. Octavo, 256 pages, lots of illustrations from original photographs of the adventures and mishappenings, also great technical drawings of the design and gear that was constructed purely around this project. Without the dust jacket but with all the action.

Taking off from the Canary Islands and making it 1,500 miles and almost all the way to Barbados before a calamitous ditching – eventually towed the final stretch by a friendly fishing boat.

About a third of the book taken up by all of the design, testing and preparatory work which makes for an interesting lengthy introduction to a truly remarkable adventure. Stuff for movie makers.

Ballooning the Atlantic – we should all give it a go!.

$25.00

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Call to the Winds – P.G. (Bill) Taylor – First Edition 1939

Important and scarce aviation book. “Bill” Taylor’s heroic flight with Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm.

First edition Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1939. Octavo, 227 pages, with period photographs of the aircraft “Southern Cross” including the damaged engine and propeller and the life saving thermos flask. Signature on front paste down. Very good copy with an almost impossible to find dust jacket.

Patrick Gordan Taylor (1891-1966) later knighted one of Australia’s greatest aviators. Participated in several major flight firsts with Sir Charles Kingsford, Charlie Ulm and later Richard Archbold. Known affectionately as “Bill” … Taylor joined the British Royal Flying Corps in 1916 with No 66 Squadron. After the war he returned to Australia and the start of commercial aviation activities.

The core of this book is about a 1935 flight, in the Southern Cross, with Kingsford Smith and Ulm from Australia to New Zealand with the view to establishing a mail service between the two countries. Mid Tasman the starboard engine failed. They decided to return to Sydney but encountered high winds. The port engine began to overheat and was running out of cooling oil. Bill Taylor climbed outside the aircraft along the wire below the wind strut, with a thermos flask, drained oil from the broken starboard engine and transferred it to the port engine. He did this six times before they made a safe landing back in Sydney.

Aviation Heroics – Bill Taylor with Kingsford Smith and Ulm – outside the Southern Cross over the Tasman

$180.00

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Biggles in The Cruise of the Condor – Capt. W.E. Johns

Biggles in Borneo – Capt W.E. Johns – First Australian Edition 1946

Sky Pilot’s Last Flight – K Langford Smith

Mysteries of the Bass Strait Triangle – Jack Loney

The Flight of the Small World [Ballooning Across the Atlantic] – Eiloart and Elstob

Call to the Winds – P.G. (Bill) Taylor – First Edition 1939

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