Francis Chichester

 
Chichester is quite famous as a yachtsman, but relatively unknown as a pilot. His adventures (and misadventures) in aviation put him in the league of the great pioneers.
 

Gipsy Moth Circles the World (The Sailor's Classics #1) by Francis Chichester Francis Chichester was an English Charles Lindbergh. In the early decades of the 20th century he mapped new air routes and flew uncharted skies solo in his Gipsy Moth bi-plane. Chichester's body aged but not his spirit. In his sixties he set himself the ultimate sailing challenge...to circle the world alone. This indomitable man tells how he turned his dream into a remarkable triumph. For on his completion of the 29,630 mile circumnavigation, Queen Elizabeth II knighted him with the very sword that her namesake gave to Sir Francis Drake four centuries ago. Dropbears.com/Amazon.com (Hardcover)

Lonely Sea and the Sky (Summersdale Travel) by Francis Chichester Hardcover from Summersdale

The Lonely Sea and the Sky
by Francis Chichester

Hodder & Stoughton 1964
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Chichester writes (The Lonely Sea and the Sky, page 165) of something odd he saw whilst on his pioneer solo flight from New Zealand to Australia in a Gypsy Moth seaplane, June 10th 1931.

   "Round the sea we flew into calm air under a weak hazy sun. I took out the sextant and got two shots. It took me thirty minutes to work them out, for the engine kept backfiring, and my attention wandered every time it did so. The sight in the end was not much use: the sun was too far west, but I got some self-respect from doing the job.

   Suddenly, ahead and thirty degrees to the left, there were bright flashes in several places, like the dazzle of a heliograph. I saw a dull grey-white airship coming towards me. It seemed impossible, but I could have sworn that it was an airship, nosing towards me like an oblong pearl. Except for a cloud or two, there was nothing else in the sky. I looked around, sometimes catching a flash or a glint, and turning again to look at the airship I found that it had disappeared. I screwed up my eyes, unable to believe them, and twisted the seaplane this way and that, thinking that the airship must be hidden by a blind spot. Dazzling flashes continued in four or five different places, but I still could not pick out any planes. Then, out of some clouds to my right front, I saw another, or the same, airship advancing. I watched it intently, determined not to look away for a fraction of a second: I'd see what happened to this one, if I had to chase it. It drew steadily closer, until perhaps a mile away, when suddenly it vanished. Then it reappeared, close to where it had vanished:  I watched with angry intentness. It drew closer, and I could see the dull gleam of light on its nose and back. It came on, but instead of increasing in size, it diminished as it approached. When quite near, it suddenly became its own ghost - one second I could see through it, and the next it had vanished. I decided that it could only be a diminutive cloud, perfectly shaped like an airship and then dissolving, but it was uncanny that it should exactly resume the same shape after it had once vanished. All this was many years before anyone spoke of flying saucers. Whatever it was I saw, it seems to have been very much like what people have since claimed to be flying saucers."

Ride on the Wind/Ff08
by Francis Chichester
Hardcover: Ayer Co Pub; ISBN: 0405121520; reprint edition (December 1979)

Along the clipper way
by Sir Francis Chichester (Author)
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Lone adventurer: the story of Sir Francis Chichester
by John Rowland
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Solo to Sydney
by Francis Chichester
(Hardcover - August 1982)

Two lives, two worlds: an autobiography
by Sheila Chichester
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London Man
by Francis Chichester
(Hardcover - May 1988)
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How to keep fit by one who never is as fit as he would like to be
by Francis Chichester
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Francis Chichester
by Anita Leslie
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The Romantic Challenge (The Mariner's Library)
by Francis Chichester
(Paperback - December 1989)
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