Tony Insall
Background
Dr Tony Insall worked for more than thirty years in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and served in Nigeria, Hong Kong, China and Malaysia, before spending five years in Norway. He was also an associate editor of FCO Historians and has published several books and articles on Norwegian history, most recently Secret Alliances, an account of Anglo-Norwegian wartime resistance cooperation. Tony is a senior visiting fellow in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He lives near Guildford in Surrey.
Vickers FB5 Gunbus
The author in front of a replica Vickers FB5, the first aircraft flown by XI Squadron, at the RAF Museum in Hendon. The FB5 weighed about a ton, had a speed of 70 mph and took half an hour to climb to 9,000 feet.
Eurofighter Typhoon
The author in front of a Typhoon of XI(F) Squadron at RAF Coningsby. The Typhoon weighs about twenty tons, has a speed of over 1,500 mph and climbs to 9,000 feet in seconds.