IBCC Lecture & Supper Series – From Biplanes to Fast Jet – 13th March 2025 18.30 – 21.30
‘Join Mark Aedy as he talks about his new book From Biplanes to Fast Jets: A pilot’s life in the Royal Air Force 1942–1973, a biography of Ken Aedy, a man whose flying career traversed a huge transformation in technology from biplanes to fast jets during the time of his service in the RAF.
Ken joined the Royal Air Force in 1942, aged eighteen, having had his medical in the Long Room at Lord’s Cricket Ground. He was taught to fly in Oklahoma in 1942 and 1943, returning to the UK on the converted Queen Mary troop ship. He first went solo on a Tiger Moth, a biplane, and subsequently transferred to heavy bombers, learning on Wellingtons before becoming operational in Lancasters during the Second World War. He also dropped food supplies to the Dutch in Operation Manna and flew returning former Prisoners of War back home to the UK. He was still only twenty years old when the war ended in May 1945.
Ken elected to remain in the Royal Air Force after the war. He was posted to Egypt at the time of Israel’s independence in 1948 and subsequently to Singapore in 1950 where he also met and married his wife. He also participated in the lead up to the Berlin airlift and in the first ever Battle of Britain fly-past over Buckingham Palace. In the 1950s, he transitioned onto jets including the Meteor, the Hunter and, his favourite, the Javelin. He served in Germany and several stations in the UK, prior to being posted to Cyprus in the mid-to-late 1960s during the emerging Middle East crisis.
It is not the story of a hero, but rather the story of an ordinary man’s experiences throughout an extraordinary century of geo-political turmoil and rapid technological advances. A heart-warming, amusing and at times harrowing tale, featuring stunning photographs, paintings and diagrams of the planes he flew and key events he witnessed.
Mark Aedy
Mark is a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University and a Non-Executive Director of British Land PLC. He was the Senior Independent Director at the Royal Marsden, the leading cancer hospital, for 7 years and he acted as a Trustee at The HALO Trust, the global de-mining charity, for six years, where he remains an Ambassador. He is Chairman of EMEA & APAC for Moelis & Company, the global independent investment bank.’
The evening starts with a delicious hot supper in The Hub Café at 18.30.
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