To organise the air: The evolution of civil aviation and the role of Sir Frederick Tymms, the flying civil servant

This is a world-spanning story about the development of international civil aviation from its first days, told through the life of a remarkable civil servant, Frederick Tymms, who joined the Air Ministry's department of civil aviation in 1919. It tells of the first European air services; the development of the trunk routes to Australia and to South Africa; the growth of civil aviation on the Indian subcontinent; the creation of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO); the postwar problems of civil aviation in New Zealand; the great issues that occupied the Council of ICAO, including the struggle for freedom of the air, traffic rights, the financing of international civil air services; common airworthiness standards; the post-colonial problems of the Caribbean region; the formulation of accident investigation procedures; and many other areas from hijacking to space-law, until Tymms' withdrawal from public life in 1974.Group Captain Johnston was a Royal Air Force Officer.