The final straight…

Having finished my [very long] chapter on Fairey and the Second World War in mid-August, and sent it out to members of the Fairey family and specialists in the field for comment, my involvement in the project has been fairly low key, i.e. other commitments have prevailed.  So this constitutes a brief blog, simply to record that this autumn marks the commencement of the final phase: the penultimate chapter (the last being a conclusion), on CRF’s last decade, 1946-56.  Given that I can’t get to the RAF Museum for some heavy duty archival work until late October, before which I shall be in the Lake District, not a lot of research is occurring at present.  I will, however, read Peter Twiss’s published account of Fairey’s experimental delta-wing jet breaking the world-speed record in 1956, not long before the company’s founder passed away – in this respect Fairey died a happy man.  Unlike Hawker, Fairey’s aircraft were generally not known for their good looks, but the record-breaker was a stunningly beautiful aircraft.  Still much to do, but the end is clearly in sight…