Radio-controlled Spitfire achieves cross-Channel flight

source

Radio-controlled Spitfire achieves cross-Channel flight

A Spitfire crossing the Channel is by no means a new thing - after all they were doing it every day 70 years ago - but this is the first one where the "pilot" has been controlling it from another aeroplane!  Of course, the reason for this is that the Spit in question is in fact a ¼-scale model.

A bit of fun on the part of the aircraft's builder - who quite understandably wanted to undertake the ultimate test-flight - the crossing is also a minor testament to those young men who flew the real thing during the war, ending as it did at the Spitfire & Hurricane Museum at Manston in Kent.

Scale model aircraft have obviously come a long way for one to be able to cross the Channel in under an hour at an average speed of 100mph.  It certainly puts my Airfix models, polystyrene & elastic-band wind-up kits and an old petrol-powered wood-and-papier-mâché Spit that was controlled by two metal wires and which could only be flown around in circles(!) into perspective!

A super-realistic model able to fly over long distances (albeit with the controller in attendance!) must surely be the next-best thing to the real article.  I hope Mr Booth continues to enjoy his aeroplane, and maybe even take it on further long-distance flights.

Women pilots celebrate first English Channel flight

Women pilots celebrate first English Channel flight

Oddly enough I was thinking just the other day, after reading several blogs celebrating International Women's Day on the 8th, who my heroines are.  Then I remembered all the female pilots of the early 20th Century and the pioneering flights they undertook - a microcosm of women's general battle for equality.  Names like Amy Johnson, Amelia Earhart and Diana Barnato-Walker sprang to mind; now this commemoration and accompanying article from the B.B.C. adds another woman to that list - Harriet Quimby.

Even before she became the first woman in the United States to have a pilot's licence Harriet Quimby was already doing what was, at the time, still a very male-orientated job - journalism.  As a theatre critic for various San Franciscan and New York newspapers and later an author of several early Hollywood screenplays Quimby was obviously possessed of an imaginative and enquiring mind so perhaps it should come as little surprise that she became interested in aviation, particularly with her links to the media which was so enamoured with powered flight in the years following Kitty Hawk.

After learning to fly in 1910 Quimby continued to work in between aviating and even used the latter as an advertising gimmick when she appeared in a unique purple aviatrix outfit to promote a new soda drink.

On the 16th April 1912 Harriet Quimby performed another flying first by becoming the first woman to fly across the English Channel and it is the centenary of this feat that female pilots from around the world commemorated in Kent yesterday - as well as the wider-ranging Women of Aviation Worldwide Week - and which is reported in the accompanying article.

Sadly less than three months later aged only 37 Harriet Quimby was killed in a flying accident in Massachusetts when for some unknown reason her aeroplane suddenly pitched forward at 3,000 feet and threw Quimby and her passenger out.  With no parachutes at that time, there was no hope of survival.

It is only right therefore that this lady and her inspiring first flight is celebrated as part of the wider acknowledgement of the history of women in aviation and it is wonderful to see so many female pilots having turned up to commemorate both this remarkable event and worthy cause.  Here's to many more flying femmes and the memory of the first few aviatrices who paved the way.

Harriet Quimby in the Moisant monoplane in which she learned to fly

Adventurer crosses English Channel using helium balloons

Adventurer crosses English Channel using helium balloons

This is just the kind of eccentric bit of fun that brings a smile to my face and so deserves its place on this blog. People have crossed the Channel in aeroplanes, in amphibious cars and on rocket-powered wings, so why not on a chair tied to a few dozen helium-filled balloons? I know what the fellow means when he talks about imagining floating away beneath a bunch of balloons - who hasn't dreamt of such a thing? - but top marks to him for making it a reality in such a memorable manner. It must have been a unique experience.

One also mustn't forget the dangers inherent in all forms of ballooning, which were no doubt magnified several-fold for this fellow, sitting precariously beneath all those balloons. On a small chair, at the mercy of the wind, suspended by dozens of balloons that could deflate or become untethered and land him in the drink; behind the humorous appearance there was much planning and scientific theory. But it's paid off handsomely and the fellow will be rightly remembered for his unusual way of crossing the Ditch. Well done that man!