The blurb for this book indicates that aviation only started in Shropshire in the late 1930s. This is far from the truth, for there were at least three airfields in the county during World War One. Today there are many including one of only two grass strips still regularly used by the RAF, and of course RAF Cosford, more famous to many as the location of an international standard indoor athletics track.

RAF Tern Hill was established in 1916 as a training station equipped with Avro 504s and later Sopwith Camels, but suffered a calamitous fire in 1919, when it was in use for working up the new Handley Page 0/400s, which destroyed two of the main hangars as well as four 0/400s and some 504s. The airfield was sold in 1920 to a race horse trainer.

Flying training started at RAF Shawbury in 1917, but the station was closed down in 1920, reactivated in the 1930s and is now The Central Air Traffic Control School, although its main runway provides sanctuary for aircraft in an area largely devoid of such facilities.

Monkmoor, near Shrewsbury, was used by Gustav Hamel in 1912, and an airfield was opened in 1918 as home for the Observers School of Reconnaissance & Aerial Photography with twenty four aircraft. The unit was disbanded in 1919, and now the site is lost under expanding Shrewsbury.

In spite of being a hilly county, Shropshire has an important part in aviation mainly in the training role. This book records this well, and has many interesting photographs of buildings and personnel as well as aircraft. It is well researched, and is a useful reference book in its field.