This is by Nevil Shute, written in 1953 but mostly set in 1983. Almost all of its projections were wrong, but I still enjoy reading it. Wartime rationing did not leave the health of the UK permanently damaged, there was not a third world war (at least so far), jet aircraft progressed much more quickly than Shute imagined, one person one vote remains the standard, the Royal Family are much more closely bound to the UK than to the commonwealth, and the UK is not iredeemably socialist (in fact 1983 was near the start of the age of Thatcher).

I like this as the story of a talented pilot who has risen from a humble upbringing in rural Australia because of his skills and his character, and I like the glimpses of professional flying, amateur sailing, and the Australian outback as of 1953 (in a framing story).

The hero is one eighth aboriginal Australian, and is both proud and sensitive about this. The other characters don't see any particular significance in this, partly because its only observable effect is to give him a skin tone no darker than that of a caucasion with a sun tan. Perhaps that reaction would be accurate for 1983. If Shute paused to think about the reaction to this aspect of the story, and his treatment of it, in 2023, he got that wrong too.