Philip Birtles joined the de Havilland Aeronautical Technical School in 1957 as an engineering apprentice and worked as PA to John Cunningham, the Second World War night fighter ace and chief test pilot. He went into marketing for aircraft and, later, weapons systems, before being appointed senior contracts executive on BAe.146 customer deliveries, a post he held until Hatfield aerodrome closed in 1993. Birtles wrote the first of some fifty books on aerospace subjects in 1980, and has been involved with the de Havilland Aircraft Museum as a volunteer for around fifty years.