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Aviation History
1931
1931 - 0737.PDF
r FLIGHT, JULY 17. 1931 cl<-.-ely until it was announced that of the original14 ;tarters 12 had arrived. The two missing were the two Civilian Coupes, both of whom had forced landingsowing to engine trouble. Flight-Lieut. Tommy Rose wa' flying the first one to land, which he had to dowhen his engine cut out near Iver, Bucks, and the result being an argument with a horse and hedge, finishing withth< machine on its back. The pilot was not hurt. Mr. Dawson, who was flying the other one, got somewhatfurther, but finally had to sit down at Bradwell Hall, near Sandbach, Cheshire, and unfortunately the machine wenton its nose when he did so, but with very little damage. After the arrival of the machines in the race, Capt. Wilson,the N.F.S. Pilot-in-Charge at Reading, gave a demonstra- tion on the new interceptor-slotted Moth. The provision ofinterceptors is a new arrangement for ruining the lift on the wing which it is desired to depress, and the extialateral control which Capt. Wilson had, at high angles of incidence with the slots in operation, was made veryevident. Then there was a series of demonstrations of the various types of aircraft present. These mostly took theform of simply flying round with a few loops or so, and the machines shown were the Redwing (Genet II) ; PussMoth (Gipsy III) ; Bluebird (Gipsy III), this being the same machine as Mrs. Victor Bruce has entered in theKing's Cup race ; the latest Comper Swift (Pobjoy) ; an Avian (Hermes) ; and a Spartan (Gipsy II). A humorouselement was then introduced by #an obstacle race for thevisiting pilots. This took the usual form of crawling through barrels and a tarpaulin, eating treacly buns, and soon, and was eventually won by Mr. E. C. Brown during a respite from his arduous job of announcing. Events now became still more drawn-out and the interestof the crowd definitely began to flag. There was a demon- stration of the Red Cross Desoutter, while the machineswhich had entered for the two-lap race round Blackpool were lined up. This was two-laps of a course of about17^ miles, and was won again by Col. L. Strange, with Miss Winifred Spooner second and Capt. Percival third. F/O. Leech then gave a really pretty display of aero-batics on the Martlet (Genet II), which he had flown up in the big race. The climb of the Martlet is really astonish-ing, and, being as it is the only British light aircraft built primarily for aerobatics, it was, so to speak, in itselement. The last item on the programme was a parachute descentby Capt. Stewart. Those who did not know Capt. Stewart assumed that the jump would not be made, since theweather was now very bad, it blowing quite hard with large rain clouds forming and coming down to less than800 ft. Capt. Stewart, however, is not the man to be deterred by little details like that, for he had spent a veryconsiderable time working out his drop, not only with figures, but also with diagrams, and, providing he hadbeen able to judge the wind speed correctly, he felt quite confident of making it successful. In this he was right, and it was undoubtedly the best judged drop wehave ever seen. He jumped actually in the clouds well out over the spectators, and landed beautifully well intothe aerodrome exactly where he meant to without having to resort to side slipping or anything else. It was unfor-tunate that this had been left to the last because by now fully half the spectators had gone home, for, although wedo not agree with parachutes being used for such purposes, yet we cannot deny that it is a thrill, legitimate or other-wise, which never fails to draw the crowd. In the evening there was a civic dinner given in theWinter Gardens at Blackpool, at which all the visiting pilots weft the guests of the Corporation. The speecheswere somewhat long, as was the toast list, and space does not allow us to report them here. The Mayor, AldermanTomlinson, J.P., was, of course, in the chair, and after the Loyal Toast proposed " Our Guests." Those whoreplied were Capt. Norman Blackburn, Herr Kronfeld and Mr. Alan Goodfellow ; a very representative list, sinceCapt. Blackburn represents the trade, Herr Kronfeld the gliding interest, and Mr. Goodfellow the private flyinginterest. Both Capt. Blackburn and Mr. Goodfellow have been connected with Blackpool for many years, the latterapparently being at a preparatory school there and having broken out one day to see Latham fly, while the Lanca-shire Aero Club, which owes him so much, was also first formed at Blackpool until it moved to Woodford, inCheshire, in 1928. After this toast the Mayoress presented the prizes, for the arrival competition to Capt. Blake ; forthe Hanworth—Blackpool race to Col. Strange, Mr. Percival and Mr. Balfour—Col. Strange, in addition to a cheque,received a beautiful gold cigarette box as a special prize from Sir Lindsay Parkinson ; for the race round Blackpool,the first, second and third prizes were given to Col. Strange, Miss Winifred Spooner and Capt. Percival, the first prizebeing a large trophy given by the Corporation. Prizes were also given to Mr. E. C. Brown, Mr. S. Light andF/O. Snelling for the obstacle race. There was also a special Cup given to Miss Hayward as being the recipientof the first "A" licence obtained at the Blackpool and Fylde Aero Club. Success to the " Blackpool Municipal Aerodrome " wasproposed by Col. the Master of Sempill, and replied to by Sir Lindsay Parkinson and Councillor Parkinson. Mr. J. G. Peel, the Chairman of N.F.S., supported byCapt. Pennington, then proposed the " Mayor and Corpora- tion of Blackpool," who himself replied, and was sup-ported by that forceful personality Alderman Tom Bicker- staffe. Alderman Bickerstaffe is, incidentally, the publicityman for the Corporation, and has done a very great deal towards the success of the Municipal Aerodrome, theBlackpool and Fylde Club, and, in fact, the whole undertaking. A dance which had been arranged in the Winter Gardensto follow the dinner was well attended, and formed an enjoyable winding-up to the meeting. 1V/IANUALLY OPERATED.—The cockpitivl of a D.H. " Moth," which has been specially built for Capt. Chevalier WillyCoppens, Order of St. Leopold, D.S.O., M.C., Legion d'Honneur, Belgian AirAttache in London and Paris. It will be seen from the accompanying illustrationthat the controls have been arranged to obviate the use of a rudder bar, since Capt.Willy Coppens has had the misfortune to lose a leg. The wheel is rotated to work therudder, c-,nd the whole column worked side- ways and fore and aft in the usual mannerfor ailerons and elevator. The " bird-cage " on the left is a special map-holder. The cockpit of the D.H. "Moth" which has been specially designed for Capt. Chevalier Willy Coppens, and to which we refer above. 691
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