Roger Frank Selby

About me:

(This goes on a bit!) Born a few days after the end of the first nuclear war, I moved around with my parents through about 15 different locations (and schools) before I was 15. This is what happens when you pick a Royal Marine Sergeant Major for your dad. But it was Dad’s 2nd career as a Navy recruiter that alerted him to the fact that I might be “Officer material” – RAF officer of course, as I had always been nuts about aeroplanes. I passed pilot selection at Biggin Hill but got offered a Direct entry commission instead of a Cranwell officer’s career. (This may have been connected with my too honest responses when comparing my loyalty to the royal family against my own family!) Anyway, I went civil flying instead and in 1965 started at Hamble College of Air Training (now defunct). I found the course tough – and lost a lot of friends and acquaintances along the way, mostly “chopped,” but one nice guy spun right into the deck whilst solo in his Chipmunk. Having scraped though Hamble, BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation - before it merged with BEA to form British Airways) was a young pilot’s heaven. I thrived in the real world of airline flying. Trained by the most pleasant and experienced flying instructors in aviation – ex wartime Lancaster bomber pilots, mostly, I jumped straight from 4 seat, twin piston-engined Apaches to 150 seat, 4 jet VC10s. That started my 18,000 hour, 33 year “Golden” career in BA on VC10s, L1011s and various types of 747. I had an 18 month break from 1980 when the VC10 was grounded due to it's poor economics. I started writing games and flight simulations, initially for another publisher, then founded my own software house, Doctor Soft. The best seller was "747" running on the Acorn BBC computer - it actually got to No1 in the Beeb charts for a few months. Then suddenly I had a flying slot again and went back to the real thing. When I retired from BA in 2000, I decided to continue flying with a few "Cowboy Outfits" - passenger and freight outfits who accept older captains. That fizzled out late summer of 2005 shortly after my 60th birthday – not a coincidence! But I don’t regret that interesting career extension – when I visited those dodgy airfields, with dodgier freight or personnel, flying clapped-out Jumbos and carrying a case full of 100 dollar bills, it made me realise just how spoilt I’d been in BA all those years. Oh yes, I almost forgot, I flew the last aircraft (an L1011 Tristar) to "escape" the 1990 Kuwait invasion. I passed the incoming 747 from UK an hour or two out (The one alleged to be full of SAS guys). The captain asked me if it was ok to land there. "Fine, no problem," I said... Well, it was when I left, honest Guv. (They had a rough time,and Sadam eventually blew up their empty jumbo.)