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145possible. Against this yardstick, there was no contest; the Hunter wonhands down.The narrative is amplified by notes on the stations, wings andsquadrons involved (including the APS at Sylt), on camouflage andmarkings and on aerobatic teams, and by a table summarising thecircumstances surrounding the loss of each of the Hunters that had to bewritten off. All of this factual information is rounded off by personalreminiscences contributed by ten pilots. The best ones? Mike Hall%u2019saccount of his hair-raising recovery and landing with his left handinextricably (and very painfully) jammed in the gunsight retractionmechanism, and Al Pollock%u2019s graphic description of an operational turnround as seen from the cockpit between sorties.And then there are the photographs, 170 of them. Few of these arefamiliar %u2018Air Ministry PR%u2019 and/or manufacturer%u2019s portraits. Most aresnapshots taken on the flight line (and some air-to-air) in the 1950s, anera during which Cold War sensitivities meant that there was a very realrisk of having one%u2019s collar felt by an RAF Policeman for doing just that.The result is a particularly interesting collection of pictures featuringHunters in unit markings that have rarely been illustrated. The interest isheightened by the fact that forty-five of these photographs are in colour,their publication serving to highlight the enormous advances that havebeen made in photographic technology since the 1950s, many of theearlier shots having very marked tonal, contrast and colour imbalances.Highly recommended. If you were a Hunter man I think that you willreally enjoy this one.CGJThose Fabulous Flying Years by Colin Cruddas. Air Britain; 2003.%u00a329.95.Those Fabulous Flying Years tells the story of the civilian pilots whobrought aviation to the attention of the pre-war British public. Thenarrative covers the whole range of endeavour from the five-bob-a-flipfrom-a-local-field joyrides being offered by barnstormers in clapped outwar surplus DH 6s in 1920 to the highly professional organisations thatoperated fleets of a dozen or more aeroplanes in the 1930s. Detailedannexes include: biographical sketches of leading personalities; pottedhistories of the many commercial enterprises involved (many of themshort-lived, because profit margins often turned out to be somewhere