The Memoirs of David Ogilvy OBE, Vice-President of the Historic Aircraft Association
By David Frederick Ogilvy
David Ogilvy spent more than a full working life in aviation. As a schoolboy he was sent out with a bugle and binoculars to blow a warning if a V1 flying bomb appeared. Soon after this, he joined the Royal Air Force and served for six years as a pilot, flying types ranging from the Tiger Moth to the Mosquito and Meteor. As a civilian he spent fourteen years involved in pilot training and became Chief Instructor of the Air Schools group, with responsibility for three establishments. He was a keen display and racing pilot and competed in many events, flying several historic types.
At an early age David realised the need for owners and operators of flyable pre-war machines to have a representative organisation to look after their concerns and interests, so, in 1951, when 22 and still serving in the RAF, he was a co-founder of the Vintage Aeroplane Club. He was also a founding member, and until his death in July 2023 a Vice President, of the Historic Aircraft Association.
In 1966 David was appointed general manager of the famous Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden. During this time, he brought in several historic aircraft, including initiating the retrieval of a 1935 Hawker Hind from Afghanistan. He flew many of the Collection’s remarkable aeroplanes, organising and participating in the displays.
As well as outlining his remarkable career, the main focus of this book is on David Ogilvy’s descriptions of many of the historic aircraft he helped rescue and preserve and what it was like to be at their controls. It therefore provides a unique compendium of the flying characteristics of a range of historic aircraft, for one or two of which, he unashamedly admitted, he was possibly the last man alive to have flown.
Away from the cockpit, David was associated with many organisations, including being a founder member of the UK Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, serving for 45 years in the roles of editor, Executive Chairman and President. He was also President of today’s Vintage Aircraft Club and a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society. David was awarded the OBE ‘for services to aviation’ in 1996.
Vintage Airfix Review:
There are books about aeroplanes, and then there are books written by men who have actually lived inside them. Structured as an aerobiography, this final work from David Ogilvy weaves his personal journey from a schoolboy peering through Elstree’s perimeter fence into a remarkable career spent flying and championing Britain’s historic aircraft heritage. His dogged pursuit of an RAF pilot’s brevet in the difficult post-war years, when the service wanted no more aircrew, establishes the character of the man early, and that quiet determination carries through everything that follows.
The real treasure lies in the individual aircraft chapters. From the Bristol F2B Fighter and A.V. Roe Triplane through to the Gloster Meteor, Ogilvy delivers handling accounts of rare authority, writing as someone who truly understood each machine’s temperament and quirks. For the modeller, these passages are extraordinarily useful: the kind of detail that informs every panel line decision and weathering choice, because you understand what the aircraft actually did. Coverage is almost exclusively British, which suits the subject well, though readers hoping for operational wartime narrative may find the emphasis tilted towards flying qualities rather than combat history. A quietly essential volume for anyone who builds, flies, or simply loves the aeroplanes that shaped this country’s skies.
