David Rooney is a historian and museum curator. Born in north-east England, he moved to London in 1995 to take a traineeship at the Science Museum, where he first encountered the aeroplane that completed the Big Hop in 1919. Over an almost thirty-year career, David has curated timekeeping, transport and engineering collections at institutions from the National Maritime Museum to the Science Museum, bringing historical stories vividly alive. He is the author of About Time: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks (2021), which has been translated into eleven languages.

About The Big Hop, David says: 'It is 30 years since I first walked beneath the canvas wings of an ungainly biplane and wondered what must have possessed two young men to fly it across the Atlantic. Writing this book is my way of paying tribute to the pioneers of aviation - men and women from all walks of life - who risked everything: for freedom, for progress, and for us.'