Flying-boat and jet engineer

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33448, 1 February 1974, Page 20

Flying-boat and jet engineer

Head in the Clouds. By G. N. Wells. Hodder and Stoughton. 253 pp. Ask any pilot with N.A.C. or Air New Zealand who began his flying career, after, say, 1955, to write his autobiography upon retirement, and the result would be tame enough: no more, in most cases, than a catalogue of journeys to and fro which might, but for tite distances involved, have come from a bus-driver’s log. Ask anyone who is retiring now to write his’ life story, however, and a very different book is likely to emerge. G. N. Wells, who retired in 1966 after 45 years in engineering — most of it aeronautical — has indeed very much more than a bus driver’s story to tell. Pioneering with Kingsford Smith in Australia (and missing only by the merest chance dying in an Avro X of Australian National Airways which crashed in the Snowy Mountains in 1931). then joining Imperial Airways to “keep the red line open” bv servicing their Atlantas, HP42’s and Syrinx’s before transferring to T.E-A.L. In 1939 he made with the latter the journey to New Zealand on the delivery flight of the Empire flying boat, Awarua, and for the company and its successor. Air New Zealand he worked successively on Sandringhams, Solents, DC6’s, Electras and DCB’s.

His career spans, in fact, the greater part of aviation history, from wood and fabric biplanes capable of about 100 m.p.h. to technical masterpieces costing millions of dollars each and capable of more than 600 m.p.h. Clearly Mr Wells has a good story to tell. How well does he tell it? Not expertly, for his expertise is

aeronautical and mechanical rather than literary, but competently enough. Indeed, his style reflects the man: honest and straightforward; without frills of any kind. The purist will find stylistic features to object to. The aviation enthusiast will, on the other hand, be delighted by the inside story of some of the industry’s most fascinating years, and respond with warmth to a plain tale plainly told by a man who has experienced a lot and put down the best of it here.