Duncan Menzies flew with the RAF, the Aeroplane and Armament Evaluation Establishment, and Fairey Aviation in a twenty-five-year flying career, seeing the world of flying change from open cockpits and few rules to the jet age, with its complexities and crowded skies. A modest, family man, Menzies set a speed record in Africa in the 1930s, survived an engine failure in a snowstorm and the terrifying breakup of a Fairey Fulmar in a terminal velocity dive.

This biography charts Menzies’ career from Scottish sheep farm through flying the frontier in Egypt and Sudan, encounters with adventurers Tom Campbell Black and Denys Finch Hatton, and the future King Edward VIII, to his crucial role as a test pilot, developing the aircraft that would help win the Second World War.