Black Aeroplane by Frederick Forsyth
Quick answer: Black Aeroplane by Frederick Forsyth, Class 10 First Flight: summary with the ending, the storm over France, the mystery pilot, the unresolved question, and exam answers.
A pilot flying an old Dakota from France to England at half past one in the morning sees storm clouds ahead, decides he cannot spare the fuel to go round, and flies straight in. Frederick Forsyth's Black Aeroplane is the second of the Two Stories about Flying in Class 10 First Flight, and it ends on a question.
The story in brief
The narrator is alone in the cockpit, the stars clear, Paris a hundred and fifty kilometres behind. Paris Control tells him to turn twelve degrees west. Thinking of breakfast at home, he sees the clouds, black and mountainous, dead ahead, and flies in. The compass spins, the radio dies, and he can see nothing.
Another aeroplane appears beside him, black, without lights, its pilot waving him to follow. He obeys like a child, turning where the stranger turns, until his tanks are nearly empty. The black aeroplane leads him down through the cloud to a lit runway and vanishes. He lands and asks the woman in the control tower who the other pilot was. She saw no other aeroplane on her radar. Only his.
The characters
Themes and meaning
Exams ask about risk and impatience, the possibility of the supernatural, and how an unexplained event tests belief. The sharper reading is that Forsyth builds the story on one bad decision, refusing to fly round the storm, and makes the rescue exactly as inexplicable as the decision was avoidable. Guardian, hallucination or luck; the story insists only that the narrator earned none of them.
The craft
The turn is the compass failing, when the pilot loses every instrument and must trust a stranger. Forsyth gives the mystery no adjectives: the black aeroplane appears, waves and leads. The ending is a fact from a minor character, and the story stops before the narrator can interpret it. Emotional Impact in Writory's five-part rubric is scored on exactly this discipline, an ending that hands the reader a fact and refuses to explain it.
For the exam
Summary in 100 words: Flying an old Dakota from France to England after midnight, the narrator meets a wall of storm clouds. Short of fuel to detour, he flies into them. His compass and radio fail and he is lost in the dark. Suddenly a black aeroplane with no lights appears alongside, and its pilot signals him to follow. He obeys, and after a while the stranger leads him down to a lit runway before disappearing. Safely landed, he asks the woman in the control tower about the other aircraft. She says her radar showed only his plane. The narrator never learns who guided him.
What writers can take from this
- Give the time, the aircraft and the distance from Paris; details make a short story answer feel exact.
- Present the mystery as three options rather than choosing one; that mirrors the story's own stance.
- Contrast the narrator's impatience before the storm with his childlike trust inside it.
- Writers: describe the inexplicable without adjectives, and let a minor character deliver the last fact.
- Stop the story before the narrator interprets the ending.
Try it yourself
Write a story in which a character takes one avoidable risk, is rescued by someone who never speaks, and learns from a stranger's calm factual statement at the end that the rescuer may not have existed.
Questions
What happens at the end of Black Aeroplane?
After the black aeroplane leads him to a runway and disappears, the pilot asks the woman in the control tower who the other pilot was. She says her radar showed no other aircraft, only his.
Why did the narrator not fly around the storm?
He did not have enough fuel to go north or south around the clouds and did not want to turn back to Paris. He decided to risk flying straight through.
What is the theme of Black Aeroplane?
The story explores risk, trust and the unexplained. An impatient decision brings the pilot into danger, and an unexplained rescue leaves him and the reader to decide between luck, illusion and something beyond either.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
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