FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1951
1951 - 1415.PDF
94 FLIGHT, 20 July 1951 IN THE DAYS OF THE BALLOON Recollections of some " Lighter-than-air " Adventures in Edwardian England By HARRY HARPER This remarkable photograph was taken, in 1903, by a remote-control camera slung from the rigging of a balloon flying at 4,000ft. In the car are seven aeronauts, nearly all of them famous then and since : Pollock, McClean, Dunville, Griffith Brewer, Hunt, Lockyer and Bidder. WHEN I first heard of the admirable plan for stagingan exhibition at Hendon to celebrate the fiftiethanniversary of the forming of the Royal Aero Club, my thoughts on pioneer air days did not roam skyward as one might have imagined. On the contrary, they brought vividly to my mind a little scene which took place down in a cool wine-cellar beneath Regent Street, London. This may sound distinctly odd, so let me explain. The pioneer aeronaut who was first to have the happy thought that early balloonists should form themselves into a club was one whose genial friendship I remember well—Frank Hedges Butler. It was with him, more than once, that I was privileged to make balloon voyages. And it was he, on that morning I am now recalling, who was seated in the little office he liked to use, in hot summer weather, down in the vaults which extended for quite some distance beneath his famous wine merchants' establishment in Regent Street. THE author of this article made a number of balloonflights in the early days of which he writes. He was then "Britain's No. 1 air reporter," on the staff of the "DailyMail." As will be apparent from other features in this issue, Lord Northcliffe's big cash prizes did much toencourage the pioneers of British aviation. He had telephoned to ask me to drop in to discuss a night trip he was contemplating in his 45,000 cu ft balloon Dolce Far Niente; he intended to take with him his friend Dr. Lockyer, the astronomical expert, who hoped to make observations from the balloon of the Halley's comet which was, at that time, making one of its periodical appearances in the sky. There would be room, Hedges Butler said, for another passenger, and he was kind enough to suggest I might like to accompany them. It was, I remember, a really hot summer morning. London Edwardian dresses, sunshades, "toppers," trim hwn?—a picture that breathes the spirit of the balloon meetings at Ranelagh and Hurlingham^- "Flight" photograph
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
