FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1931
1931 - 0541.PDF
FLIGHT, JUNE 5, 1931 THE YORKSHIRE AEROPLANE CLUB'S FETE A Welt-Attended Meeting Held at Sherburn-in-Elmet ^-mr-'HE Yorksl V I Fete of t _IL May 31. Yorkshire Aeroplane Club held their first Air the year at Sherburn-in-Elmet on Sunday, Ma . The crowd they gathered consisted of many, many thousands of people, and we imagine that the total attendance must have been even greater than that of last year. The weather was not too good, it having rained very heavily beforehand, with the result that the Aerodrome was a mass of water, but during the actual Show it remained com- paratively fine. Following the success of Nottingham the previous Sunday, the organisation was good and, with the exception that the crowd were allowed to wander all round the machines immediately the programme had come to an end, everything went smoothly. There was an arrival com- petition, for which a large cup was presented, and this was won by Mr. Dawson on his Civilian Coupe (Genet Major). Lord Grimthorpe, in his capacity as President of the Club, was fortunately able to be present to open the proceedings. Immediately after his speech, which was again broadcast from Mr. Lindsay Everard's public address van, a fly-past of some 17 different types of aircraft was started. Other demon- strations, which followed quickly without any undue delay, were an aerobatic display on the Martlet (Genet II) by F/O. P. M. Watt, which served admirably to show the exceptional manoeuvrability of this excellent little air- craft ; a race over a course of some 30 miles' length for the Yorkshire Cup, presented by Lord Grimthorpe, which was won by Flt.-Lt. Stainforth in a Spartan (Cirrus III), with Mr. Percival in the Hendy 302 (Hermes II) second, and Flt.-Lt. Gibbons in a Spartan (Hermes II) third. Once again the handicapping was done by Messrs. Dancy and Rowarth, who naturally provided a spectacular finish. Other items were a demonstration of the Civilian Coupe (Genet Major) by F/O. H. H. Leech, and a balloon burst- ing competition, which was won by F/O. P. M. Watt on the Martlet, whose accurate piloting enabled him to burst all his balloons at his first contact with them. THE OPENING WORDS: Lord Grimthorpe making the opening speech at Sherburn. Next to him is Mr. E. C. Brown who so ably did the announcing while the bellicose gentleman (can a "gentle"-man be bellicose?) is Capt. Pennington of N.F.S. sales staff. F/O. W. E. Johnson repeated the excellent show he had given on the Lincock (Lynx) at Northampton the pre- vious Monday, and showed the crowd that, given the right pilot and right machine, an aircraft may be flown in the inverted position almost as well as the right . . way up. Flt.-Lt. H. M. Schofield gave a display on the Auto- giro, and in doing so unfor- tunately provided the daily Press with just the sort of headlines they are so fond of. It is true that he crashed, but his crash was of the con- trolled type, and provided an opportunity of showing what a really magnificent pilot he is. Had he been otherwise, the result w-ould have been very, very different, and would undoubtedly have meant the end of a large number of spectators. It is naturally somewhat difficult to say exactly what happened, but it appeared to us that a sudden bump, with a subse- quent drop out of a steep turn, caused the rotor to slow up considerably, and thus made it impossible for Schol- field to carry on in a normal manner. He appeared to be falling right on to the crowd a.nd, had they not been there, it is possible that he would have been able to continue in that direction far enough to have regained his flying speed, but the risk was too great, and he did not hesitate to turn into the aerodrome and pancake the machine on it some 20 yards clear of them. We are very glad to say that he himself did not suffer anything more serious than a very severe shaking and a nasty scalp wound. The whole incident was also in a way a triumph fcr the Autogiro, for any normal machine would almost certainly have dropped a wing, and probably dived straight into the crowd completely out of control. Flt.-Lt. C. B. Wincott flew the Arrow Active in its first public demonstration. This is a machine i/hich has been built by Messrs. Thornton & Oddy, of the Arrow- Aircraft Co., of Leeds, and is an attempt to provide the R.A.F. with a small and cheap training machine with a high performance. It is entirely of metal construction, with ^Jie front part of the fuselage mainly of duralumin SOS
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
