"Flying Boat Pilot in War and Peace: Disaster and Survival: The Extraordinary Life of Captain M.J.R. 'Roly' Alderson" - "" ("Alderson Mark")(Pevná vazba) - diskuze

At the age of twelve, on hearing that Sir Ross Smith had broken the England-Australia aero record in a Vickers Vimy, Roly Alderson decided that he wanted to fly. Denied a secondary education, orphan Roly was an accomplished engineer by the time he arrived at Cambridge in his home-built car. He left with a degree, a racing Bentley and a pilot’s licence. Alderson had already logged several hundred hours when recruited by Imperial Airways in 1933. His skills were quickly recognized, and he was selected to fly Lord Willingdon, the Viceroy and Governor General of India, on his farewell tour of India. Alderson’s Holy Grail, nevertheless, was to ‘fly boats’, and it was not long before Roly had joined these venerated ranks on the new route to South Africa. Whilst serving as a Captain on Imperial Airways’ prestigious New York-Bermuda service, Alderson reported a number of serious concerns regarding carburettor icing on his Short Empire flying boat Cavalier. His prescience was ignored, and on 21 January 1939, a day after penning a final warning, Cavalier was forced down into the empty wastes of the Atlantic. Due to Alderson’s consummate airmanship and the bravery of heroine passenger Edna Watson, ten of the thirteen souls on board survived. Their miraculous rescue by the tanker Esso Baytown, part of a huge international search and rescue effort, after eleven gruelling hours in cold shark-infested waters, dominated the world’s headline
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