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Aviation History
1979
1979 - 0031.PDF
THE HEROES Editor J. M. Ramsden has been celebrating the 70th birthday of Flight by asking representative generations of aviation men who their aviation idols were, and why. First . . . Since Flight was born the first of all the heroes have been the Wright brothers. Here the Flight camera catches Wilbur. With his brother Orville, who made Man's first flight before we made the first Flight, he was the first of many American and world aviation heroes Sir T. O. M. Sopwith 90 •mmMmmmmmmi Illiiiililsfeiil The name Sopwith was already a legend in the 1914-1918 war. The grand old man of aviation is still founder-president of the Hawker Siddeley Group, which he started in 1920. He finally retired from the board only six days ago. His sense of humour and rum cocktails were as good as ever when he received us at his lovely Hampshire manor house. He lives in quiet retirement ("except when my son Tom and his family land on the lawn in his helicopter") together with his labradors and enormous fan mail ("mostly from Americans for some reason"). We asked him the question we put to everyone: You are one of our heroes—who are yours, and why? CHARLES ROLLS and I used to balloon together before either of us flew, in 1906. Charles Rolls was a very odd character. He didn't get on with everybody, but he had a delightful sense of humour. He was a very keen motorist, and when I first met him he was selling Panhards and Minervas from the same London shop that Rolls-Royce Motors has today, 14 Conduit Street. I was only 18 and he was 28. He gave his name to what has now become one of our greatest companies. I remember the first motor car they built, a two-cylinder which Rolls built in Manchester before he moved to Derby. Lord Brabazon was a friend of mine at the same time, when we were all ballooning before we got into powered flight. I started ballooning in 1906. I stuck to it for only a couple of years, then gradually drifted into powered flying. Brab was a great individualist, again with a very keen sense of humour. Lord Brabazon came first all the time. For years he had an office in London plastered with nothing but pictures of Lord Brabazon! "Boom" Trenchard was one of my early heroes. In 1912 I had a cottage just outside the track at Brooklands, and two or three sheds inside. Boom knocked on the door one morning. He was then a major in the Scots Fusiliers. "You Sopwith?" I said yes. "Sykes told me to come and have a talk with you. Can you teach me to fly in ten days because after that I'm too old?" We got him his ticket in ten days. I think you had to be under 40 then to join the Royal Flying Corps. Trenchard was a tremendous leader of men. An extra ordinary character. He practically never wrote a letter. Maurice Baring wrote all his letters for him. Leadership is an indefinable thing, but Trenchard had it. All the young officers would follow Boom anywhere. I was pleased with our First World War aeroplanes. Mind you, the Camel wasn't everybody's cup of tea. It was rather tricky to fly. The Pup that preceded the Camel was a delightful little aeroplane. It had no tricks at all. no vices. You couldn't say that for the Camel. I don't know whether I had expected it to be more success ful than the other 80 or 90 or 100 aircraft we produced. It's always very largely a matter of timing. You must remember that up to the beginning of the First World War all our flying was done entirely by feel. We had no instruments at all. There wasn't such a thing as an air speed indicator. All our aeroplanes were built entirely by
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