Born to Fly

When five-year-old Bob Williams flew to Berlin with his family in a noisy, freezing Avro Tudor, his mother was in tears, but he thought it was the most exciting event of his young life. Having been bitten by the aviation bug, he found there was no cure and made up his mind he would always work with aircraft. Starting as an apprentice engineer with British Eagle, he experienced the first of several redundancies when they folded in 1968. Dan-Air sponsored him for his commercial pilot’s licence, and he gained his command on their Boeing 737s before being made redundant once more. Over the decades that followed he would fly for ten different airlines, only two of which have survived. He rose to the rank of Chief Pilot, and the story of his career is, in many ways, the story of a remarkable industry that flourished in the years following World War Two but experienced many failures and setbacks along the way. Born to Fly is essential reading for those who want to understand the remarkable growth and periodic failures of Britain’s airlines, or those who seek only a good read and the heartwarming story of a boy who lived his dreams.

On leaving school, Bob Williams joined the independent airline, British Eagle, to train as an engineer, but the airline folded when he was three years into a four-year course. He completed his training with the Civil Air Transport Industry Training Board and joined BOAC as an electrical engineer on their Boeing 707 fleet. It was a ‘good job’ but in his heart he knew he’d rather fly aeroplanes than maintain them. Dan-Air sponsored him to train as a commercial pilot with Air Service Training in Perth, following which he joined them as a co-pilot on HS 748s. He later converted to the BAC 1-11, and Boeing 737 on which he gained his command. When British Airways took control of Dan-Air they made him redundant after nineteen years of service. These were turbulent years for airlines and Bob would go on to fly more than 21,000 hours for ten different companies on many types of aircraft, becoming an instructor, line check captain and chief pilot along the way.