Richard Adams

Richard Adams, a journalist on the Guardian, is writing a biography of John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor.

Flying Costs: The great Ryanair Disaster

Richard Adams, 2 September 2004

The Maxim Gorky, a giant airliner built with money raised by the Union of Soviet Writers and Editors in 1934, was like nothing that had gone before it. The wings of the Tupolev-designed plane had a span of more than sixty metres, the same as a Boeing 747’s. It was driven by eight massive engines, generating between them 7000 horsepower. Its 11 cabins, connected by telephone lines and...

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