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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 0167.PDF
JANUARY 18, 1940. 63 CORRESPONDENCE The Editor does not hold himself responsible for the views expressed by correspondents. The names and addresses of the writers, not necessarily for publication, must in all cases accompany letters. MOORE-BRABAZON'S No. 1 Not Designed by Shorts T DO not want to take up space in your columns with a J- controversy with Sir Alliott Verdon-Koe about statements made in the book he has had published regarding the first aeroplane which Short Brothers built for Mr. Moore-Brabazon. So far as I am concerned this is my last letter on the subject if you will be so good as to publish it. Sir Alliott Verdon-Roe, in his reply to my letter says he thought we built the aeroplane which Mr. Moore-Brabazon attempted to fly at Brooklands in 1907, but in his book he states it as a fact! In his letter published in Flight of Decem- ber 28, 1939, he also says he believes that Short's No. 1 and No. 2 were made " under an arrangement with Wright Brothers," and he insinuates that we were only capable of building aeroplanes from drawings supplied. The statements are entirely incorrect. If I cannot rebpond to Sir Alliott Verdon-Roe's sense of humour on the:-e matters it is because I consider such state- ments a reflection upon the work and ability of my late brother. Horace, who designed those first machines. He was not the man to make a " floppy" and unsound structure and no one should say that he did so. I am not acting upon Sir Alliott Verdon-Roe's apparent sug- gestion that I should follow the policy of Barnum, of Barnum and Bailey's Circus, in seeking publicity at any price. •""" -*• ' OSWALD SHORT.Rochester. " Moore-Brab " Looks BackT HE correspondence in your columns between Mr. H. O. Short and Sir Alliott Verdon-Roe has compelled me not only to read Sir Alliott Verdon-Roe's book " The World of Wings and Things," but also to trespass on your space. I crave forgiveness, but I have not often offended. I enclose a photograph of the machine in question, built during 1906 and 1907. It bears little resemblance to any product of Short Brothers, and they were in no way respon- sible for it, except for the fact that they cut the fabric and made me some of the spars. I do not believe at the time they knew ior what purposes these were made, so they may be absolved from responsibility. I need hardly say this machine did not fly, nor can the claim by Roe, that his machine built in 1908 flew, be sub- stantiated. It is curious to note that on June 26th, 1909, a year later, Roe wrote to flight drawing attention to the fact that with a triplane on Lee Marshes he was getting hops :— " It may come as a surprise to your readers to learn that I have been making dozens of short flights with my British built aeroplane during the last few weeks; true they are hardly more than jumps, being only 2 and 3 feet high and 50 or so feet in length. "Personally, I would have preferred to let this fact leak out on its own accord . . . etc., etc." If such hops were remarkable in 1909 they would have been astonishing in 1908, even if confined to running down the 1 in 13 slope at Brooklands, and would have attracted great attention if true, and would certainly have persuaded Roda- kowsky—the manager of Brookiands—to keep him at the track as a "draw." No mention, no claim, not a word was ever said about this "flight" till many years later. Now read Roe's account of the " ecstasy " of his first flight, written in 1939: "These few seconds of life gave me a most exuberating feeling of triumph and conquest . . . etc " How curious that on August 14th, 1908—note the date— he wrote to Wilbur Wright a letter in which, after saying that since May he had made six trials, he ends up with this sole claim in these words :— "I managed to make several flights towed by a motor car, the power required being very slight." The flight he describes so vividly now in 1939 was thus never even mentioned in a description of his work to Wilbur Wright two months after the supposed event. The fact that Roe did not mention any claim to free flight condemns him with his own words, as he was looking and praying for help to carry on experiments, and he could scarcely have omitted recording such a remarkable fact. The claim was never made till long afterwards, and I notice becomes more detailed, more1 ' ecstatic '' as years go by ! I also take the gravest exception to some remarks in the preface by Major Oliver Stewart as to the findings of the Committee set up by the Royal Aero Club to investigate this matter. He seems to doubt the " bona fides " of the Com- mittee's findings. As the tribunal consisted of Lord Gorell, ex-Under Secretary of State for Air, in the chair, Captain Geoffrey de Havilland and Lt. Col. W. Lockwood Marsh, ex- Secretary of the Royal Aeronautical Society, it is to them be owes an apology, now that he knows the facts of which hither- to he must have been ignorant. I bow to no one in my admiration for the wonderful early work of Sir Alliott Verdon-Roe, but as in the latter part of his book he accuses bankers of being robbers, so I ask him to take " the team out of his own eye, before he notices ihe mote in others." True, I have never been given a public dinner, true, I am not a Knigtit, but I have this satisfaction that my early flights were not "of lancy," but of fact, substantiated as to time and place by trustworthy witnesses still alive, and recorded in the Press of the time. J. T. C. MOORE-BRABAZON. London, S.W.i. THE VALUE OF GLIDING The Dinghy Analogy IT would appear from your Editorial Notes on January 4,that in spite of the actual experience of last summer, Value No. .1 of Gliding from a national point of view, is still not realised by the power flying world generally, or the Air Ministry in particular. As a guess, I would hazard the reason is be- cause effective gliding was not "switched on" in this country until 1935, right in the middle of our power experience, in- •' Fllyhl " photograph. EARLY DAYS AT BROOKLANDS : Lt. Col. Moore-Brabazon's first aeroplane, about which the controversy centres. It is scarcely surprising that this machine did not fly.
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