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Aviation History
1934
1934 - 1172.PDF
1174 FLIGHT, NOVEMBER 8, 1934. Scenes in the various shops of the College ofAeronautical Engineering at Brooklands. At the top is the outside of the main building, inwhich general erection is done ; below, the students are having an engineering lecture ;on the right is the wood mill, and at the bottom two students are repairing the fabric coveringof a wing. (Flight Photos.) Lloyd, however, was not the man to be put off by a setback of this nature, and towards the end of the following year he invited Paulhan to come to Brooklands and give an air dis- play. The ground which had been condemned was got ready, and on November 1st Paulhan delighted a record crowd of 15,000 people by remaining in the air for just under three hours and rising to a height of about 800 feet. From that day Brooklands was established as an aerodrome. Two years before this Mr. A. V. Roe, now Sir Alliott Verdon-Roe—had had a shed there, alongside one rented by Mr. (now Lt.-Col.) J. T. C. Moore-Brabazon " A. V.," as he is affectionately known, made many towed flights behind motor cars, but before ho was able to do much he was ordered to leave by the authorities, who did not look with favour on flying. He came back in 1910, and in partnership with his brother, H. V. Roe, had more resources upon which to found one of onr best-known aviation firms—A. V. Roc and Co., Ltd. Early Pilots "A. V." was only the first of a long line of names which have made aviation history, and which first became well known through their connection with Brooklands. The Hon. Alan Boyle, E. V. Sassoon, E. Petre and his brother H. A. Petre (who still flies his own aeroplane), Howard Flanders, F. P. Raynham, R. F. McFie, Mrs. Maurice Hewlett, T. Sopwith, " Jimmie " Valentine, Oscar Morison, G. H. Handasyde, Howard Pixton, Gordon Bell, Keith Davies, Graham Gilmour, and Harry Hawker are but a few names of pioneers who did so much to make aeroplanes what they are to-day. Early Air Races In 1910 air races were first arranged at Brooklands. In 1911 the Daily Mail flight round Britain started from there, and from then until the beginning of the war air races and displays were among the chief attractions of Brooklands. During the war Brooklands was in the hands of the R.F.C., and many of the well-known war-time pilot? were trained there, including men like the two Salmond brothers, Sir Sefton Brancker and Lord Trenchard After the war Col. Lindsay Lloyd resumed his duties, and both the racing track and the aerodrome were gradually got back into peace-time order. Vickers, who had had a shed there during the war, took over the Itala works, and these became a large aircraft factory. In 1926 Col. G. L. P. Henderson started the Henderson School of Flying. Later on the H. G. Hawker Engineering Company, now Hawker Aircraft, Ltd., took over some of the large aeroplane hangars. In 1928 Capt. H. D. Davis, together with R. L. Old- meadow and H. S. Hamilton, took over Col. Henderson's goodwill and started operations with three machines. The next step of expansion was made in the spring of the next year, when Capt. E. A. Jones was appointed Chief Instructor. His loss some years later was, perhaps, the severest blow that the School has ever suffered. It was not until the end of 1929 that the Brooklands School of Flying, Ltd., could call itself a sound undertaking—not that it wasn't always soundly run and conceived, but financially, like all undertakings of this nature, the vicissitudes through which it had to go were many, and before this date there was little evidence of a steady
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