Thrown around the sky
Author insight into writing realistic flying sequences for a novel with a free extract from ‘The Shape of Rain’.
I have always been crazy keen on flying in any form ever since I was a small boy growing up under the flightpath of Heathrow airport in west London. Flying away to foreign climes was not so common in my childhood, so I had to wait until I was thirteen for my first flight. It was on a British Eagle BAC 1-11 from Heathrow to Gerona in Spain – and I was hooked! At that time, all I wanted to be when I grew up was an airline pilot.
Flying in the RAF
By age 15, I was a member of the Royal Air Force Cadets at my school in Wimbledon. As such, I was able to clock up a few flying hours learning from RAF pilot trainers out of an RAF base in Oxfordshire, England. We flew deHavilland Chipmunk single engine, two-seater aircraft configured where the trainee would sit in the front seat with the trainer behind.
I will never forget my first flight as my trainer was actually the Squadron Leader, who used his seniority to decide that we would have a mock airborne dogfight with the only other Chipmunk aloft at that time. As an avid reader of the Biggles books throughout my childhood (ask your dad), I found it hugely exhilarating as my pilot threw us all around the sky as we sought to gain an advantage.
Fighting the G Force in a Dogfight
Eventually, our ‘opponent’ managed to work his way on to our tail and, despite a number of evasive manoeuvres, we couldn’t shake him. Finally my pilot warned me through the intercom that we would have to go into an aileron roll where theaircraft does a full 360° revolution about its longitudinal axis. Taken a bit by surprise, my head was initially forced between my knees by the g-force. Forcing myself back up upright, I watched in amazement as the ground and sky seemingly revolved around the cockpit.
By the time we landed I was completely hooked. In truth, I always had been, ever since reading my first Biggles novel. This flight had only served to confirm what I always suspected. I loved flying! Unfortunately, I was to discover over the next couple of years that my lack of mathematical ability would prevent me from passing the navigation exams necessary for a full pilot’s licence.
Microlights and The Shape of Rain
In recent years, my interest has turned to flying in microlight aircraft – tiny planes where the two occupants sit open to the elements. Highly exhilarating and thoroughly recommended. When it came to writing ‘The Shape of Rain’ I was determined to include a flying sequence to utilise my microlight experiences and also as a bit of nod to the Biggles books of my youth. The extract you can link to here and read for free is about the first flight the protagonist – Jack Conrad – takes with his new friend and ally – Dallas ‘Mad Dog’ Seger – a wild and unconventional American he meets in Saudi Arabia.
The purpose of this scene is twofold – first Conrad and Seger make a grisly discovery during the flight and second, it sets up a crucial escape scene near the end of the book.
To ensure authenticity, I took a microlight flight with an experienced pilot and tried out some of the manoeuvres described in both flying sequences from the book. I was able to try out high altitude flying (for a microlight) as well as some low altitude twists and turns as well as one semi-dive although, since the scenes described in the book are of unauthorised flights over the Saudi Arabian desert and Gulf, I wasn’t able to replicate the conditions as I was flying over Wiltshire in the southwest of England.
Click here to read the free extract and feel free to let me know what you think via this website.
Enjoy your flight! I’m off to see if I can find one of my old Biggles books…
Buy ‘The Shape of Rain’ NOW! It’s available on Amazon Kindle. UK readers click here and, if you’re in the US click here.
