A Change of Wings
Words on Wings Press is excited to announce new editions of ALL NINE of Don McVicar’s exciting aviation memoirs as sleek and easy-to-read Kindle e-books.
This is the FIRST TIME these volumes are all available in the same format, known as the Streamlined Edition.
Fun fact about e-books; they are also searchable databases! Better than an index, simply type in the name of an airplane, person or place for the full value of the content to be revealed. This is a real boon to aviation historians and other aficionados of the numerous types of now-classic aircraft McVicar flew and wrote of so brilliantly.
A Change of Wings was first published as a hardcover book in 1984, by Airlife in England. It immediately follows North Atlantic Cat, when Royal Air Force Ferry Command Captain/Navigator Don McVicar is summoned to appear before Air Vice-Marshal R. L. G. Marix, who has some startling news for him.
In North Atlantic Cat, McVicar becomes an instructor at Ferry Command’s main base in Dorval, Quebec, tasked to check out other Ferry Command pilots on the many types of aircraft that are needed at the “sharp end” of the war. However, he continues to make deliveries as a break from sitting somewhat helplessly next to his student, hoping he can correct in time the mistakes the man will be sure to make as he attempts to master the idiosyncrasies of each bomber.
Yet with D-Day a few months in the past, rumors that the Allies were soon going to triumph over the Third Reich were coming thick and fast. When McVicar is again summoned before A.V.M Marix, the stunning question is put before him: what are your career plans for after the war?
Which is how the young Canadian pilot found himself in the cockpit of a Lockheed 12A staring down an insanely-placed airstrip named “Diamond” on the Island of St. Vincent in the Caribbean as Chief Pilot of British West Indian Airlines. And a few months after that, flying his very own Stinson Reliant float plane deep into the desolate forests of the far-north Canadian bush for a somewhat sketchy fur-trading business. And along the way, founding World-Wide Aviation Consulting, an employment agency to help other pilots find work after the war…in other words, as in all McVicar’s books, lots of thrilling flying adventures where the reader feels as if they are right in the cockpit with him!
Possibly the most famous B-24 Liberator, Commando, after its redesign with a single tail; the photo is covered with signatures of Ferry Commanders. During its previous double-tailed life, this aircraft carried Prime Minister Winston Churchill on his secret missions to meet with other Allied world leaders.
The first airplane purchased by the author, this gull-wing Stinson Reliant carried him and his passengers into the deep north bush on a fur-trading venture.
