Top Secret Boeing by Bob Shaw: NEW 2013 Signed by Author Softcover Trade Paperback

Author: Bob Shaw

Publisher: 2013, The Defford Aviation Heritage Group

Pagination: 216

Format: Softcover Trade Paperback

Condition: Old new stock, expect an item that may have been in stock for some time which is undamaged, with minimal wear, see pictures.

Signed by Author.

'Top Secret Boeing' details the use of Boeing 247D NC13344/DZ203 in the development of airborne radar during World War II, work that culminated in the development of automatic landing systems that are used by airlines throughout the world today. Access to archives and memoirs of the airmen and scientists who flew and worked in the Boeing results in a comprehensive study with numerous photos, some not published before.


When Boeing 247D NC13344 first flew in 1933, it was the latest thing in airliners. But by 1940, it was out of date and sold off to Canada, who needed training aircraft. A secret mission to Washington, approved by Winston Churchill and agreed by President Roosevelt, plucked the elderly airliner from obscurity. It was chosen as a demonstrator for the prototype American 10cm air intercept radar (based on the British invention, the magnetron).
It was then sent to Britain, where radar scientists at Malvern, and the airmen who flew aircraft on secret radar trials at Defford airfield in Worcestershire, found 'The Boeing' the ideal flying tool for radar research. After proving the US radar, which was developed to equip the RAF's night fighter squadrons, The Boeing was chosen to carry out the first flying trials on the revolutionary X-band radar, capable of spotting the Schnorkel tubes of submerged U-boats. These trials were so secret that The Boeing was accorded Top Secret status, probably the only civil airliner ever to achieve this status.
Finally, its ultimate achievement, in January 1945 - the world's first automatic orbit, approach and blind landing. Boeing 247D DZ203 went on for two years advancing the cause of automatic landing, pointing the way to the ability of airliners to operate in all weathers and darkness which we take for granted today, before meeting its end in the harsh winter of 1947.
This is the extraordinary life story of a ''Very Singular Aeroplane'', and of the scientists and airmen, in Britain, the United States and Canada, whose combined achievements played a vital role in victory in the Second World War, and went on to make flying safer for everyone in the Peace which followed.


'Bob Shaw, the author, has taken the tale of a very singular aeroplane, DZ203, an ex-airlines Boeing 247-D, as his loom and on it has woven a compelling tapestry which tells the story of three of the most significant British scientific contributions to the Second World War... his book engagingly tells the story of the ingenuity of the scientists and the skills of the pilots in the development of Radar and Automatic Landing. This book does justice to the soul of that old Boeing and to the achievements of the men and women of RAF Defford.' - Capt. Lloyd Cromwell Griffit