An Average Pilot

?? the familiar drooped eyes of a fighter pilot ? drooped by continual scanning into the sun?

Cedric Masterman was a brave and charismatic RAF pilot. He saw action in an unusually wide variety of combat zones and flew a great range of different aircraft types before, during and after World War Two. Later in life ? and in poignant contrast to his inspirational flying career ? he became lost in the downward spiral of Alzheimer?s disease.

Drawing on his father?s own wartime records ? log books, diaries and personal effects ? Cedric?s son Christopher has written a moving account of a remarkable life. The story follows his father?s flying career from aircraft to aircraft, all of which are described (and illustrated) with a fine degree of technical detail. Running in parallel with this, and in sad contrast to it, is the description of his father?s later sufferings from Alzheimer?s and the strategies his family is forced to adopt to deal with his increasingly eccentric behaviour.

An Average Pilot? is also the story of a son?s personal struggle to come to terms with his father?s decline, finding in the older man?s greater dependency a warmth and closeness that had not been there before.