Book reviews Thats fast enough: Flying, family & fleeing. A career in aviation and unearthly family history by Peter Herzberg Available on Amazon, paperback 10.99, Kindle 3.99 and hardcover 25.99, Blue Agapanthus Publishing. This is the journey of a very talented career pilot who was fortunate enough to fly in the heyday of aviation in the 1980s and 90s. With parents less than supportive of his career choice, he showed true grit and determination to succeed, following the traditional (modular) route of pilot training from light aircraft to instructing, starting with flying oil workers in Aberdeen with Dan-Air on the BAC 1-11. He moved on to the Bae146, 737 and, getting his command on the beauty of the skies, moved to the 747, then a final stint with EasyJet on the 737 and A320, before retiring back to his roots in the scenic Lake District. The author excelled throughout his 40 years of flying, dealing with emergencies (I counted six engine failures), becoming a senior training captain, TRE, and then training cadets. The book also follows his family life and success raising his three daughters (no mean feat as a long-haul pilot) and keeping his wife, Jan, happy commuting from the north to EGKK long-haul shifts. The book ends with the author tracing his German (Herzberg) family back to World War II, where they suffered persecution by the Nazis, and follows the trail of lost artefacts and family treasures that were plundered by the fascist regime. This book is full of interesting aviation stories and comical excerpts from the authors time in the cockpit. It is a fantastic and thoroughly enjoyable read, which was hard to put down. Review by Matthew Martin, Log Board member The CAT and the Hamsters: The history of the College of Air Training by Captain Stuart Logan (published by Legend Media, 25, currently available from www.bookworldws.co.uk/ product/the-cat-and-the-hamsters This book probably has a fairly limited appeal, dealing as it does with the 24-year lifetime of the College of Air Training (The CAT) at Hamble, and the students (the Hamsters as they were described by the predominantly ex-RAF captains with whom they were going to fly), plus a short prequel covering the selection and training of pilots for the two British corporations BEA and BOAC and their antecedents. Captain Stuart Logan, an alumnus of the college, graduated in April 1965 and joined BEA as a second officer on the Trident fleet. He has done a lot of research, both from the pages of Flight International (which seems to have had an inordinate interest in the college) and archives of the college, and from interviews with former staff and fellow graduates. The result is an interesting little book giving much detail about the college, its instructors and students, not to mention the aircraft on which they trained. There is also quite a lot of what might be termed behind the scenes activity within the two corporations that were funding a large part of the colleges operation such as their inability to accurately forecast the number of co-pilots they would require a few months into the future. It was rumoured that one way around this problem was to raise the bar and so chop a larger proportion of students from some courses than others. The end of the book has a list of the courses run at the college from September 1960 until July 1981, together with names of students and, crucially, the dates of their graduation or not, if they left the college for any reason. Interestingly, in a chapter entitled Accidents and incidents, the students involved are identified by their initials but in a Dont tell them, Pike! twist, the author lets the cat out of the bag by identifying SL as himself. A few errors cannot go unreported. As a pilot, the author should know the correct spelling of the aerodromes he visited or at least knew about. Stansted not Stanstead, Blackbushe not Blackbush, Luxembourg not Luxemburg. And the large building used to store and maintain aircraft is a hangar, not a hanger! Review by Mark Dobson, Log Board member Would you like to review a book for The Log? If so, simply email TheLog@balpa.org BOO K R EVI EWS Our pick of the best flight-related tomes