County Durham Aviation Stories

County Durham has a rich yet sometimes unheralded aviation history. Beginning with intrepid balloon pilots flying in the 1850s, powered aircraft appeared on the scene in 1910 and the First World War brought many more aeroplanes to the county, based at the first few aerodromes to be created. The Second World War saw a huge engagement between RAF fighters and German bombers along the Durham coast in August 1940. Later in the war, training units began to operate out of former fighter stations and heavy bomber crews took the fight to Germany. The post-war era was a time when jet training began in earnest at Middleton St. George (now Teesside International Airport) - and saw a relatively high attrition rate among one particular type of aircraft used there. Recreation flying "took off" in the 1960s and 1970s but this involved some incidents and accidents too. This book features stories about some of the aircraft that have been based in County Durham, visited the area for one reason or another, and a few of those which crashed there. They are told in detail, augmented by newspaper reporting from the time. This book is intended to be the first of a series, with the second volume already in preparation.