Looks at the new activity of transcontinental civil flying in the 1930s and its extension of British imperial attitudes and practices. Gathers new evidence to distil the age, class, gender and occupational profiles of people who used private and commercial aircraft and looks at how flying in the period was and is romanticised and caricatured.

General editor’s introduction1. Introduction PART I Private flying2. Aerial adventure3. Seeking supremacy4. Imperial encountersPART II Commercial flying5. ‘PAX’ Britannica 6. Imperial journeys7. Personifying EmpirePART III Virtual flying 8. Imperial plumage9. Imperial passages10. Re-flying Empire11. ConclusionIndex

Cultures and caricatures of British imperial aviation assembles an unprecedented mass of scattered evidence to examine the social exclusivity of people who used private and commercial aircraft to circulate though the empire in the 1930s. While airline publicity stressed flying patriotically and in style, flying was not always slick, romantic or modern. It did not end danger or delay, nor was it necessarily progressive. Imperial flying was mobility laced with imperious assumptions and prejudices. It reinforced social rank and continued to depend on the subservience and muscle of colonised people for regular and emergency travel assistance.Complementary biographical material, illustration and narrative illuminate the atmosphere, meaning and significance of imperial civil flying. Imperial cultures and caricatures were tenacious in the face of new technology, and Pirie shows that imperial attitudes and values framed the experiences and interactions of the (mostly) male British metropolitan and expatriate elites who flew, whether for adventure, prizes or leisure, or for colonial administration, business or research. The book also reveals the imperial sensations, sights and sensibilities experienced by those in less-privileged roles that served aviation. Drawing upon contemporary airline publicity and flying travelogues, he highlights the reproduction and (dubious) ‘elevation’ of imperialism in new spaces, which survives today as iconography in nostalgic re-enactments and sanitised commemoration of late British empire.Engagingly written by an established expert in the field, this book will be of particular interest to scholars of imperial, cultural and transport history.

'In all, this is a fascinating view of a bygone era.'Airways, 1 July 2013'In this book, Gordon Pirie has managed to give readers the next-best thing by offering an entertaining and comprehensive study of the unique perspective on the twentieth-century British Empire offered by flying.'John McAleer, H-Empire, H-Net Reviews. May 2014'In this highly engaging and helpfully illustrated account of British Imperial aviation in the 1930s, Gordon Pirie builds on his near-unparalleled knowledge of inter-war British air services to expertly interweave an engrossing narrative history with a critical analysis of the academic and cultural significance of Britain's growing aerial aspirations and influence.'Lucy Budd, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 2014.'... a worthy successor to Pirie's earlier Air Empire ... makes him the acknowledged expert on British imperial aviation .... It deserves a place on the bookshelves of the aviation historian as much as the scholar of Empire - indeed of anyone interested in the cultural upheavals of the 1930s'.Peter Lyth, Journal of Transport History 34(2) (2013), pp. 218-220.'This highly original and readable book is to be recommended to anyone interested in the history of air transport, and to scholars concerned with the culture and mentality of colonialism.' Marc Dierikx, Journal of Transport Geography, 28 (2013), p. 214'... another entertaining and enlightening study ...' JE Hoare, Asian Affairs, 2013