David F. McIntyre is one of Scotland’s unsung heroes, perhaps known for his Everest achievement, but less well known for his role in developing a thriving aircraft and airline industry in Scotland. A quiet man of vision and determination, he followed a dream of a Scottish industry leading the world…

He was born in Govan, Glasgow in 1905 and grew up in a period when aviation was blossoming. At the time of his birth Scotland’s aviation history had hardly begun but it would not be long before the success of the Wright brothers at Kittyhawk, North Carolina in 1903 inspired Scots engineers. The Barnwell brothers in Stirling, the Gibsons in Edinburgh and Preston Watson in Dundee were all to achieve powered flight by 1910.

This book looks at the life of David McIntyre through those pioneering years of aviation and also his distinguished career in No. 602 ‘City of Glasgow’ Squadron in the early 1930s.

During World War Two Prestwick became an important training centre for RAF pilots and David was heavily involved with this and with the later development of Prestwick into an international airport. 

Just six years after his first solo flight David McIntyre faced the biggest challenge of his flying career when, piloting an open-cockpit Westland Wallace biplane, he flew over Mount Everest on a record-breaking expedition in 1933.

Using a number of previously unpublished images and accounts of the 1933 Everest flight, the book unveils the drama and near disasters of this early aviation milestone.

That same pioneering spirit fuelled his vision for later challenges – launching a Scottish based aircraft company that would go on to produce the successful Prestwick Pioneer and Twin Pioneer aircraft; establishing Scottish Airlines during the growth period of commercial travel in the post-war era; struggling through the years of airline nationalisation and developing a major international airport hub at Prestwick.

Previously unpublished material from private letters, photographs and pilot’s logbooks have been brought together for the first time in this fascinating portrait of one of Scotland’s aviation heroes, written by Dougal McIntyre, David’s son.