“Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of carelessness, incapacity or neglect.”

. . the steward from the front galley shot into the cockpit – shaking. “What’s happening?”

‘Should fly-by-wire products come with a Use Responsibly label?’

‘As compared with a bird, man is a very clumsy creature. . ’

‘. . . we can see webbing strap items on the side rail hanging upwards. The Cessna is flying upside down.’

“You don’t have to do it, but it’s nice to be asked.”

When the stationary air above a stationary runway is approached by a landing Concorde it gets squashed - squeezed like Polyfilla under an expensive filling knife.

‘He described the rather sedate and indeterminate way this modified aircraft tumbled about, and started to ask the CFI what to do next – but the CFI had gone, so he ejected, similarly.’

‘He stayed true to his hobby and was shot dead as he entered his apartment in the evening of March 22nd 1990. A professional job, for sure. The world of Le Carré had caught up with him.’

‘For pilots just out of training school with little more than 150 hours on Tiger Moth and Oxford, it would not have been easy.’

A Sideways Look into the possible future . . .

‘This Prima Donna has to be treated as another airliner. We’re now a grimly competitive bus company, not a bunch of formula one fairies.’ Nobody actually said this, but perhaps you get the idea.

“Alright, you can have the Flying Scholarship, but you’ll have to grow two inches if you want to come back here.”

Jeremy turned round and said ‘Jump in, you can fly the accel.’ . . . Wow! Is he serious? I’ve never been supersonic before, even as a passenger. Of course, his confidence belied the Concorde’s agreeable nature when doing the very thing it was designed for.

‘. . . but even worse is the crime of a deliberate attempt to step outside one’s capability box in the hope that Lady Luck will somehow come to your aid, and make you look like the hero that lives in your imagination.’

Leopards live in these inaccessible regions – and they have the strongest bite per size of any seriously-biting creature. A walkout, if possible, would take for ever. And this is their home – think about it.

. . . . hesitation or incorrect timing could put you in big trouble, confront you with the most dangerous paragliding circumstance. I’ve never done this manoeuvre myself, but I know how it works.

‘Many of us function quite satisfactorily with no personal picture that we’re aware of, and many will have binned their write-ups instantly. I salute them. Their motto is ‘If it ain’t broke don’t fix it,’ and my 200,000 mile Golf has prospered similarly.’

Was there really an aeroplane out there? Do the past and future exist? Perhaps the present is the only reality, suggesting that cat-shots are, for most of the time, creations of the fevered imagination. What a surreal way to take off. Fantastic.

Think, damn you! Think!!” I told myself. My first decision was to climb as high as possible until the collector tank ran out, so as to give myself the full eight minutes of life that I had left.”