Balch, Adrian M. Hawker Siddeley 748 & Andover in Military Service

The Avro 748 prototype, G-APZV, made its maiden flight on 24 June 1960 and became a highly successful, robust replacement for the many DC-3 Dakotas in service worldwide. In production, it became the second most successful British turboprop transport aircraft, surpassed in numbers only by the Vickers Viscount. A total of 381 Hawker Siddeley HS 748s were built, including 89 under licence by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in India. Production of this successful turboprop commercial aircraft and its military variant, the Andover, ran from 1960 to 1988. This included 37 Andovers for the RAF and RNZAF. Over 50 military HS 748s were sold, 72 to the Indian Air Force, others to the RAAF, the Brazilian Air Force and others, accounting for a significant proportion of the 381 aircraft built. Many of these went to various air forces around the world and were used for tasks such as transport, navigation training and VIP transport. The HS748 was selected for the royal family as the Andover CC.2, and three of them served the Queen's Flight faithfully and reliably for over twenty years from 1964. There are other publications that focus on all the civilian airlines that operated the HS748, but as a Warpaint publication, this is the first time that all the aircraft that were in military service with air forces around the world have been featured and almost all of them in over 160 high-quality colour photographs with notes on colour schemes and markings. This is another Warpaint book by author Adrian Balch, complemented by precise profile drawings by artist Sam Pearson, and a must-have for aviation historians and modellers alike.