In the early days of aviation,  Australia produced some truly great aviators, among them Charles Kingsford Smith, Charles Ulm and Charles “Moth” Eaton.  A contemporary of them all was Sir Gordon Taylor who, as well as being a great pilot was also a highly skilled navigator.  “The Sky Beyond” is the story of his aviation career, told autobiographically.  He touches on his personal life only in passing, and only when it impinges on his aviation exploits.  And those exploits were numerous and varied.

Like most of his contemporaries, Taylor learned to fly during the First World War.  Because in 1916 the newly formed Australian Flying Corps were not recruiting pilots, Taylor came to England and joined the Royal Flying Corps.  The story of the initial trauma of his basic instruction, the near disaster of his first combat and the horror he felt on destroying an enemy aircraft and airman are all told in just seventeen pages.  Thereafter he moves on to what was clearly his passion – long range navigation and the opening of new routes.  Quickly he learned the mysteries of astro navigation and of handling sea-planes and flying boats.  The trade of an airline pilot he learned with Australian National Airways; the skills of astro navigation he taught himself in a float-plane with a bubble sextant that he designed himself.

Between 1933 and 1935 Taylor made a number of pioneering flights with Kingsford Smith.  The tale of his having to go out on the wing on one flight to get oil from a failed engine to top up the leaking oil tank of the engine on the other wing is quite literally horrifying.  After the loss of Kingsford Smith he continued to make surveying flights until the outbreak of war in 1939.  Eventually in 1942 he found himself in Dorval in Canada ferrying aircraft across the Atlantic to UK.  Then in 1944 it was back to pioneering flight in a Catalina, opening routes in the South Pacific until 1953, when his story closes.

This is a story that demonstrates genuine heroism, yet it is told without bravado and in a very readable fashion.  The book is, of course, long out of print, but copies are available on Amazon at around £25, and if you see it on the shelves of a second-hand bookshop or a car boot sale it is certainly worth purchasing.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bantam USA; New edition (1 Nov. 1991)
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 055323949X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0553239492