Selling Wings to the Dragon by Dick Wise
    Dick started out intending to write the story of the attempted Harrier sale to China and ended up writing nearly 600 pages on the complete history of Britain,s aviation trade with China.

This is a fascinating story and well worth reading even if the book’s size is somewhat daunting at first. However, perseverance brings rewards as so much of this little known story is brought to life by Dick’s comprehensive and clear writing.

++

+A prologue covers early Anglo-Sino trade from 1596 to 1909, after which, period by period, the story continues to 1996 relating on the way the Trident, VC-10 and Harrier marketing campaigns together with the commercial, political and geopolitical aspects. These sections are particularly fascinating as Dick recounts in considerable detail the activities of which we were only somewhat vaguely aware at the time. Of course, this comment applies particularly to Dick’s coverage of the Harrier which included a flight evaluation by a Chinese test pilot with John Farley in the two seat demonstrator, G-VTOL. After all the effort to sell Harriers to China the only aircraft to be delivered was a GR3, XZ965, in 1996 by Ray Hannah, to the Beijing Air and Space Museum. With detailed footnotes, an extensive bibliography and comprehensive index the book (ISBN-13:978-1975677183 – ISBN1975677188) is published by Janus Transatlantic and is available from Amazon at £20.64.


Book Reviews
The Aviation Historian, Issue 44 does not contain anything particularly ‘Hawkerish’ but there are articles of interest to our generation: Keith Hayward writes about TSR.2’s political life and death; Chris Gibson, with illustrations by Ian Bott, describes the Bristol Bloodhound and relates its history; and Mariano Sciaroni writes in detail on Argentina’s concerns about mainland attacks by Vulcans and how to defend their bases during the Falklands war whilst Chris Gibson gives the RAF view. However Issue 45’s cover shows Harrier GR3s over Norway, introducing USAF exchange pilot Colonel John W Zink’s article about his time with the RAF. Cdr John Ford recalls day and night dive bombing in Sea Hawks, and Mark Russell gives us the history of the Vickers machine gun and its Sopwith-Kauper synchroniser with more of Ian Bott’s excellent illustrations. Tony Buttler describes North American’s supersonic fighter projects of the early 1950s including the cancelled F-108 Rapier.