Up Gently

From the window of his parents’ home, the young John Sutherland watched classic piston airliners—Dakotas, Elizabethans, Constellations and others—approaching Newcastle Airport. At the age of seven he flew for the first time from Newcastle to Basle and return, in a BKS Airspeed Ambassador. Those were the glamour days of air travel, and it cemented his desire to become a pilot.



On leaving school he joined the RAF and trained as a helicopter pilot. He flew the Westland Wessex on CASEVAC missions, search and rescue, and as a display pilot. Later, as a civilian, he would pilot helicopters in almost every role: North Sea, police, VIP, royalty, and ambulance, as well as search and rescue. His story, Up Gently, takes the reader from early training through to the most challenging situations a rotary wing pilot can face.