One of the best-selling aircraft of British civil aviation, the BAC 1-11 took to the skies for the first time in August 1963, with an order book for sixty aircraft. More than half the orders were from the United States an unprecedented situation for a British civil aircraft. The only aircraft wholly designed and built by BAC, it remained in production throughout the entire seventeen-year history of the organisation, performing strongly even when profits were at a low. After flying commercially for the last time in March 2002, here the 1-11 is celebrated in style fifty years after its maiden flight.

Skinner combines original research with a multitude of images and detailed appendices to consider what transpired in those five decades and the place the 1-11 holds in British aviation history.