In my novel, Eugenica, I featured an aircraft that has always captured my imagination. It was a De Havilland Dragon Rapide. The De Havilland company built the Dragon Rapide in the 1930’s as a short-haul bi-plane airliner. It accommodated 6 to 8 passengers and was to prove both a durable and popular commercial aircraft. It was even pressed into service by the Royal Airforce and the Royal Navy during World War 2. Perhaps the most impressive fact about this aeroplane is, however, that there are still examples of them flying today. It is to me a quintessential representation of a stylish period that now only exists as nostalgia.

Eugenica is set in the 1930’s and features Emma Johnson, a woman pilot. She is a member of the Indivisibles, an organisation set up to combat the sinister Ministry of Social Biology by getting the kind of people that organisation is incarcerating out of the country; often by flying them quickly to safe destinations. To achieve this, Emma has a Dragon Rapide. It is one of the perks of being an author that you can indulge these kind of fantasies, only I was not expecting this particular one to come true!

My wife has bought tickets for both of us to take a flight on an original De Havilland Dragon Rapide. We will be travelling down to Cambridge for the experience and I will be writing more about the day, the aeroplane, and how it feels having a little bit of fantasy come to life, when we get back.