David Beaty was a former RAF pilot, novelist and non-fiction writer whose books about flying earned him worldwide reputation.Born in Ceylon in 1919, Beaty was educated at Kingswood, Bath and Merton College, Oxford. He became an RAF pilot during WWII, where he excelled, but gave up a life in the Air Force to write full-time. However, his experiences informed his many novels. In 1960, Cone of Silence was made into a film starring Peter Cushing and George Sanders. He was on the staff of the College of Air Training, was an associate member of the British Airline Pilots' Association, and a Companion of the Royal Aeronautical Society.