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 Ian Black experienced the calling for aerial photography as an F-4 pilot in the British Royal Air Force. It transpired while he was flying low-level air defense of western Germany. After eight years in the RAF, he transferred from the Phantom to the British Lightning and became the RAF’s last single-seat fighter pilot. Ironically, this distinction placed him diametrically opposite from the distinction his father garnered in the RAF twenty-five years earlier — as one of the RAF’s first Lightning pilots. When the Lightning was withdrawn from service, Black was posted to the all-new Tornado F3 interceptor. He was based at RAF Leeming and took part in Operation Desert Shield. At the end of five years and some 1,200 hours on the F3, Black spent a month on detachment in the Falkland Islands. Photographically, these five years were his most productive. Books on the Lightning were followed by ones on the Tornado, Desert Storm, and his much-acclaimed work, The Combat Edge.
After his Falklands experience, Black was sent to the RAF’s most prestigious exchange posting, flying the Dassault Mirage 2000 in the south of France. Two-month deployments from Italy flying combat air patrols over Bosnia were interspersed with a two-month stint in Saudi Arabia. Black flew over 150 combat-rated missions in his time with the French Air Force. During this period, he published Last of the Lightnings, a tribute to Britain’s greatest jet fighter. Black retired from the RAF in 1996 and now flies the Airbus A340 for Virgin Atlantic Airways.
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