Beyond Lion Rock: The Story of Cathay Pacific Airways

This is a must read for anyone who is a current employee, past employee or offspring of Cathay Pacific employees. In fact it's a great read for any aviation historian buff. Fascinating how this airline was still flying DC3's and 4 until the very early sixities! Look at this airline now! Some very interesting chapters which bring back memories when I was a child in HKG with the old man as one of the early Convair Flight Engineers, in particular the runway departure from centreline on take off into Hong Kong Harbour and the very sad mid air explosion in 1972. Poor old Flight Engineer Hickey survived the Convair sinking into Honk Kong harbour only to meet his premature demise in the 1972 mid air explosion. My old lady (an ex Cathay flight hostess) and the old man ( started his Cathay flight eng days on the DC6 and the Electra) say this bloke Hickey was a true gentleman. Full credit to Syd (an Aussie) and Roy ( a Yank and a Texan at that) for their grand vision that has now evolved into one the great global service airlines!!!

A "commissioned" book that even the staid London Financial Times reviewer found a "riveting and .. rumbustious" tale? Only Gavin Young could do that surely? When the famous House of Swires (used to be Butterfield and Swires, founded in 1816) who own Cathay Pacific asked the author to write a history of the airline he was reluctant to accept the project. On investigating the wealth of documents and talking with former Cathay Pacific Airways founders and pilots Gavin Young changed his mind."Here was an exciting adventure yarn to be told!"Tell it he does, in all its exciting details of early flying in the old Dakota's, props chewing the monsoons as they gasped `over the hump' and into Hong Kong and, subsequently, into a future of 747 `Heavy' luxury jets with what is reputed to be, the best airline service with the best First Class in the world.A great little history of aviation and innovation and of the company `Taipans' in old Hong Kong.

Good background on Cathay pacific and written in a simple, interesting and easy to read style. It's a bit dated now, only going up to 1988. Still an interesting background of the early days of the airline and a good read for any aviation enthusiast or Hong konger

Great book, well written, a few errors here and there. Covers the rise of Cathay Pacific and its founders, Roy, Syd and the transfer and ownership under the Swire group. It is a little dated now, but the recent history can be sourced easily on the internet.

Great book to learn about the airlines history especially for a job interview with the them. Very well written book

as a fan of CX, you can not miss it.

Great Order. very pleased with the shipment, wish it could have gotten to me sooner but over all it was good.

This book presents a wonderful story of the growth of Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways. A large number of first hand accounts are cited. The 2 chapters on the investigation of 2 misterious CX accidents are exceptional and movie-like, ie. the crash of a DC-3 in the late 1940s (which is always said to be the first recorded hijack in world history) & the explosion of a Convair 880 over Vietnam in early 1970s. This book is definitely a must for aviation history lovers.

This is a very well written human story of an airline. It is written by an author with no prior knowledge of aviation and evidently not very interested in it. The result being a fascinating story of great people who contributed to the success of Cathay Pacific, but unfortunately almost nothing on the more interesting “metal” side of the story. Well, it still makes an excellent read, but I wish someone comes up with a more conventional story, including invaluable first-hand story of one of the original founders and the man whose leadership brought the airline to the world of big aviation. Highly recommended.

Great rendition of how the storied airline was built by seat of the pants entrepreneurs. You hope that somewhere out there beyond the modern corporate bureaucracy the spirit of those times lives on.

A very good read of an illustrious and famous airline which has built its reputation on quality of service safety and reliability. From the early days when staff went the extra mile and the founders demanded the best it's an excellent read with tragedy and triumph including winning the London route to compete with the famous British Caledonian airways . The author has done an excellent job.

Lovely book, my husband really enjoyed this book.

Das Buch kam in gutem Zustand an. Es ist ein Klassiker unter den Büchern über die Geschichte von Fluggesellschaften.Leider gibt es das Buch nur als Paperback Ausgabe. Da ich Cathay Pacific ( die Hong Kong Airline ) auch als Insiderkenne, ist das Buch besonders interessant.