After a hair-raising First World War career in the Royal Naval Air Service, Alan Campbell Orde immediately began to make his mark on the fledgling world of British civil aviation. He was one of the first commercial airline pilots after the war, later diversifying as an instructor in China and as chief test pilot for Armstrong Whitworth. In 1937 he became operations manager of the original British Airways, which was rapidly emerging as the ‘second force’ to Imperial Airways. Here he utilised the latest American airliners and organised Chamberlain’s famous Munich flights. During the Second World War, after the two airlines merged into BOAC, Campbell Orde, as operations director, was central to organizing the airline’s invaluable assistance to the RAF with schemes such as the North Atlantic Ferry Service, which supplied British troops in North Africa and opened links to Russia. After the war, Campbell Orde became BOAC’s operations development director, resisting government pressure to have the airline rebuild its fleet using British aircraft. Driven by an ambition to make BOAC a world leader in civil aviation, he steered it towards the acquisition of more advanced and more efficient US and Canadian airliners. Alan Campbell Orde: Pioneer Aviator, Test Pilot and Airline Chief is the story of a remarkable career in aviation and man whose impact on British civil aviation can still be felt today.
