Facebook X YouTube Instagram TikTok NetGalley
Google Books previews are unavailable because you have chosen to turn off third party cookies for enhanced content. Visit our cookies page to review your cookie settings.

Warbirds to Workhorses (Hardback)

Bob and Keith’s Book of Flight Tests

Aviation > Aircraft Aviation > Pilots Photographic Books

By Bob Davy, Keith Wilson
Imprint: Air World
Pages: 224
Illustrations: 200 colour illustrations
ISBN: 9781399057615
Published: 31st October 2025

in_stock

£28.00 Introductory Offer

RRP £35.00

Note: If you have previously requested any release reminder emails for this product to the email address entered above, then the choice you make now about which format(s) of the product you wish to be reminded about will replace the choice you made last time.
You'll be £28.00 closer to your next £10.00 credit when you purchase Warbirds to Workhorses. What's this?
+£4.99 UK Delivery or free UK delivery if order is over £40
(click here for international delivery rates)

Order within the next 11 hours, 2 minutes to get your order processed the next working day!

Need a currency converter? Check XE.com for live rates



Bob Davy and Keith Wilson have been combining their respective talents for more than twenty years, flying and photographing a variety of aircraft for flight test features, and having their work published around the world. This lavishly illustrated book represents the first opportunity to prepare a wide selection of their combined work in hardback form.

Warbirds featured include the venerable North American P-51 Mustang (on which Bob gained a Type Rating), the UK’s last remaining airworthy and historically significant de Havilland Vampire T.11, and Bob’s own Yak-3 UTI. Also featured is the Stinson AT-19 Reliant I, often referred to as the ‘Gull Wing’.

At the Workhorse end of the scale is the Helio Courier, an aircraft possessing amazing STOL performance, that later became infamous during its clandestine operations in Laos with Air America, often referred to as the CIA’s ‘Most Secret Airline’. Also featured is the Cessna Citation Mustang business jet, and the eight-seat Piper PA-31-350 Navajo Chieftain.

For the floatplane enthusiasts, there is an article on flying a Maule M-7-235B Rocket Amphibian on and off a lake in Essex. Aerobatics fans can enjoy the articles on the Pitts S-2A Special and Slingsby T.67M-260. For the airline enthusiasts, Bob takes you on a commercial flight in a BAe 146 from Paris to Dublin (he was a captain on CityJet). And much, much more. Then there are features on the ‘Flying Egg’ – the Questair Venture, the Aviat Husky Pup, and the capable and occasionally aerobatic Vans RV-4. Finally, and for something completely different, join Bob inside Spitfires.com’s Spitfire simulator at Goodwood.

Each of Bob Davy’s carefully crafted and occasionally, hard-hitting features is superbly illustrated with a range of dynamic air-to-air photographs, almost exclusively from the lens of Keith Wilson, a practitioner of air-to-air photography, with almost forty-five years’ experience. Whatever your specific taste in aviation, there is something for everyone to enjoy within the lavishly illustrated pages of this book.

There are no reviews for this book. Register or Login now and you can be the first to post a review!

About Bob Davy

Bob Davy is a commercial pilot and aviation journalist. He has 16,000 flying hours in 300 different fixed-wing aircraft … but not helicopters. Bob says he is allergic to them! He is lucky because he regularly flies three of his favourite aircraft: the North American P-51 Mustang, the Nanchang CJ-6A, and his own Yak-3 UTI. Bob produced his first aviation journalistic contribution when he completed a flight test article on the Aeronca Chief back in 1990, and his journalistic work has subsequently been published all over the world. In addition to writing hundreds of flight tests, he has written and published two novels: In Case of War Break Glass, Parts 1 and 2. These follow the life of a fighter pilot in the Second World War, Korea, and Vietnam and are loosely based on the life of Robin Olds.


 Keith Wilson

About Keith Wilson

KEITH WILSON has been actively involved in aviation publishing for more than 35 years and is a prolific author. Keith is probably best known for his striking air-to-air images in Pilot magazine, during which time he has photographed almost 2,000 different aircraft; featuring a very broad range of subjects, from gliders, microlight, vintage and veteran, aerobatic and general aviation subjects right through to high altitude research aircraft, business jets, commercial jets and military fast jets.
Keith is the author of RAF in Camera: 1950s, RAF in Camera: 1960s and RAF in Camera: 1970s - all published by Pen and Sword Aviation.

More titles by Keith Wilson

Other titles in Air World...