Author(s): Rory MacLean

Biography & Memoir

On a windy spring morning in an ancient village surrounded by mountains on Crete, Rory MacLean fell to earth.

His mother had died a few months earlier and a single obsession had risen from his grief: the notion to build a feather-light flying machine. And so, on the island where Daedalus and Icarus had made man's maiden flight, MacLean journeyed back to beginnings, back into the Greek myths, and - with the help of effusive but irrepressible neighbours and plenty of wine - built a plane and tried to fly . . .