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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 1121.PDF
April 18, 1940 FLIGHT e 1912 TO 1940 A History of Marine Aircraft Development : Supermarine's Twenty - eight Years of Un- interrupted Work : A Great Racing Record TWO facts stand out prominently in the followingrecord of the work and types of aircraft of theSupermarine works of Vickers-Armstrongs, Ltd.: the amazing versatility of the firm in producing at least one new type every year, and the concentration of effort on marine aircraft. Landplanes there have been in Super- marine history, but they have been incidental until the Spitfire. The speciality always has been, and is now, marine aircraft. In the early days there was always a nice tang of the sea about everything Supermarines did, and no one who visited the old hull shop will ever forget the delicious scent of the wooden planks being shaped there by craftsmen. The whole idea behind everything was aptly summed,up in the phrase coined many years ago: " Not an aeroplane that will float but a boat that' will fly." Seaworthiness first, other desirable features second. But we are rather anticipating. Originally the firm was founded by Mr. Noel Pemberton Billing in 1912, and a small factory was established on the banks of the river Itchen, at Woolston. The beginnings were quite modest, and we recollect that the first time we visited the factory, which had by then begun to produce on a small scale, we were shown a great many projects, and The first "Supermarine." The P.B.i was a biplane flying boat with 50 h.p. Gnome rotary engine driving a tractor air- screw. Note the grapnel in the bows. Above, one of the early Spitfire fighters. Designed and built in a very short space of time in 1914, the P.B.9 (left) was nicknamed the"Seven-day " bus. a few actual achievements, the latter being in the form of a few frames and planks (spruce, by the way) intended for a flying boat. At night we were the guests of Mr. Pemberton Billing on board a three-masted schooner in which he lived at the time. This was moored in the Itchen, a short way above the factory. And what schemes we dis- cussed ! What arguments we had! The boat that was building was unorthodox enough in all con- science, but it was as nothing compared with the '' paper boats." One of these, we remember, was so designed that if it had to make a forced alighting on the sea, an occurrence which was not infrequent in those days, it could shed its wings and proceed as an ordinary motor boat. Bold, you will say, but the idea certainly had merits. Like so many of .Pemberton Billing's schemes, it was years ahead of its time. On this particular occasion, we were met at South- ampton West station by a ginger-headed young man in an A.C. We did not know who he was, nor had we any means then of knowing that he was destined to become
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