Imperial Airways is a name redolent of the excitement and glamour of the pioneering years of flight. This is a lively and entertaining history of this famous commercial aviation company, packed full of tales of daring and danger and larger than life characters who were the pioneers of aviation as we know it today. It will take readers back to a time when it could take more than a week to travel by flying boat between Australia and the UK and when passengers flying the near East routes would stay the night at remote desert forts en-route for India. Covering a huge range of aircraft types flying at the time including the HP 42 airliner, and the experimental “Mercury-Maia" project, this is a beautiful and evocative look back at the “golden age" of passenger flight.

The result of many years of research and complemented by a wealth of stunning photographs and ephemera, this volume will be the most definitive book ever published on the history of Imperial Airways and the formative years of British commercial aviation.