A web log, an æthereal scrap-book if you will, with a somewhat vintage flavour. News items, occurrences, experiences, thoughts and opinions related to Victoriana through to Fifties Americana can all be found here.
Huzzah! We've finally made it in to 2024 (just!) with this latest item of news, featuring a modern aviation pacesetter and someone who will certainly go on to do great things in the industry - 21-year-old female pilot Ellie Carter.
Miss Carter first made the headlines four years ago when, on her 17th birthday, she became Britain's youngest-ever licensed woman pilot. Flying has obviously been in her blood for much longer, though, judging by the story related in the accompanying articles about her run-in with the USAF authorities at the age of nine(!) not to mention her subsequent aeronautical experiences that led to her record-breaking qualification.
Now another record is set to be broken by this committed aviatrix, as I am delighted to see that she has been chosen to be the first person - and the first-ever woman - to fly a newly-completed [replica] of a workhorse aircraft of the First World War, the Sopwith 1½-Strutter, built over the last 23 years by a team of enthusiasts in East Lothian. Even better the B.B.C. have approached her with the intention of making a documentary about her life and this ground-breaking flight, which is due to be aired later this year. Definitely something I will be looking out for in the schedules!
source - Picryl French-built Sopwith 1½-Strutter at Air Service Production Centre No. 2, Romorantin Aerodrome, France, 1918
As ever with this type of young, dedicated individual it is wonderful to see the obvious, palpable enthusiasm for her chosen calling and her clear desire to make a life's career out of aviation. At the same time her down-to-earth (if you'll pardon the expression!) attitude is equally admirable and, in conjunction with her degree in Aeronautics & Astronautics (which if she hasn't already achieved at the time of writing, I'm sure she will!) will keep her in good stead as a worthy ambassador for women and young girls in aviation and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) in general. She reminds me very much of another lady pilot (about whom I have also previously blogged), Tracey Curtis-Taylor; I am sure that Ellie Carter will follow a similar path and that this will not be the last time she appears on these pages, or in the annals of aviation history. To borrow an expression familiar to those original 1½-Strutter pilots - "soft landings and no dud engines!"
Back to Hawker Hurricanes again for this next story, featuring the extraordinary recovery of eight airframes that have been found buried in woodland just outside Kyiv, Ukraine. While the almost-too-good-to-be-true story of Spitfires and Mosquitoes buried in Burma a few years ago turned out to be just that, with no physical evidence of such aircraft being found, this tangible discovery - as first reported back in July 2023 - is far more promising and all the more remarkable since it is occurring in the middle of an active warzone.
Hawker Hurricane II ’11 white’ recreation, on display in ‘Victory Park’, Museum of the Great Patriotic War, Poklonnaya Hill, Moscow, Russia.
That has not deterred the members of the National Aviation Museum of Ukraine who took advantage of an unexploded bomb disposal nearby to locate the remains of the eight aircraft and begin excavations, with the aim to retrieve as many parts as possible in order to hopefully recreate one complete aeroplane. How far they have progressed in the intervening eight months it is not possible to say; the museum is unsurprisingly closed for the duration so I expect work is severely limited but it would be nice to think that the parts could eventually be reassembled into a full-scale display once all the unpleasantness is over.
A Hawker Hurricane Mark IIB, Z5253 'GA-25' of No. 134 Squadron RAF taxies out past Russian sentries at Vaenga, near Murmansk, October 1941. Several British squadrons were originally sent out to train Russian pilots before handing the Hurricanes over to them.
I take my hat off to the museum's volunteers, who must have been working under immense pressure - and probably not a little danger - to get these relics to safety and so begin the job of sorting through the parts needed to create a complete Hurricane. Cleaning, repairing and cataloguing are strenuous undertakings at the best of times but what it must be like with the evils of war hanging over you is almost unimaginable. That these men are driven to rescue these long-abandoned machines, with the desire to return one to period condition in honour of the brave [Ukrainian] pilots who flew them on the Eastern Front during the German invasion of Russia, is more than admirable and I wish them every success in their endeavour (when the situation permits) - stay safe, gentlemen!
A heart-warming story from April 2023 now, featuring remarkable WWII RAF veteran Bernard Gardiner who, for his 101st birthday, took a flight - and what's more after nearly 80 years, the controls! - of the world's only two-seater Hawker Hurricane.
As well as being a well-deserved and very apt gift for Mr Gardiner's milestone this was also something of a "thank you" not only for his admirable service during the war but also his role as a patron of the Hawker Typhoon Preservation Group, a charity set up in 2016 with the aim of returning an example of another of Hawker's famous Second World War aircraft - the Typhoon fighter-bomber - to airworthy status.
The Typhoon, which first flew in February 1940 and entered service in 1941, was intended to be the replacement for the Hurricane and was initially deployed as a pure fighter to counteract the German Focke-Wulf 190 which was outclassing almost everything the Allies could put up against it. Although it proved to be the equal of the Fw190, especially at low level, some early structural design flaws held it back and it was subsequently switched to the roles of low level ground attack and interception. Armed initially with six .303in machine guns, then later four 20mm cannons, the Typhoon was also able to carry up to 2,000lbs in bombs or eight wing-mounted rockets making it a formidable foe against German armour and reinforced positions. The Typhoon continued in this multi-role function for the remainder of the war, finally being retired in October 1945. Prior to that however, in September 1942, it begat the Tempest - a development of the original Typhoon design (indeed early examples were referred to as the Typhoon II) that was intended to be more of a true fighter aircraft than the Typhoon (or "Tiffie" as it was affectionately known). The Tempest would go on to become one of the most powerful piston-engined aircraft of the war - at low level the fastest single-seat propellor-driven aircraft of the time, so fast that it was easily able to deal with V1 flying bombs and even Messerschmitt's jet-powered 262.
Flight Lieutenant Walter Dring, commander of "B" Flight, No. 183 Squadron RAF, with his Typhoon Mark IB, R8884 "HF-L", in a dispersal at Gatwick, Sussex. source - IWM
Unlike the Tempest, of which there is one airworthy survivor (which made its maiden flight only last October following seven years of restoration) and at least three around the world currently undergoing restoration to flying condition, there is currently only one extant (static) example of a Typhoon - MN235, which over the last few years has been on display at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum in Washington D.C., the RAF Museum at Hendon, the Canada Aviation & Space Museum in Ottawa and - at the moment - the RAF Museum London. All that will hopefully change soon, though, thanks to the hard work of Hawker Typhoon Preservation Group which is aiming to restore Typhoon MkIB RB396 to airworthy condition so that people can see this remarkable (and, in relation to the Spitfire or Hurricane, somewhat forgotten) Second World War aeroplane take to the skies again in honour of those, like Bernard Gardiner, who flew them. After a pause of a couple of years due to the pandemic work has restarted and continues apace; with luck and thanks to the HTPG we (and hopefully Mr Gardiner!) may yet see a Tiffie in the air once more.
Well, this is something I never thought I'd be blogging about. Not that I'm an expert on such things as dolls, you understand (although while we're at it, who else remember Sindy?). Anyway, this is more a case of the subject within a subject being of interest (hopefully!) to my readers, with the news that Mattel, maker of the Barbie doll, has honoured one of the pioneers of early aviation with the latest addition to their range.
The aviatrix in question is Elizabeth "Bessie" Coleman, who made history in 1921 when she became the first black person to obtain an international pilot's licence. Her story is one that frankly deserves more recognition and I can only hope that this acknowledgement by Mattel goes some way towards achieving that.
Born in Atlanta, Texas in 1892 Bessie Coleman seemed all set to follow in her parents' footsteps as a cotton picker. However from an early age she proved to be an academic student, fond of reading and a whizz at maths, such that she was given a scholarship by the local Baptist church that eventually enabled her to attend what is now the Langston University in Oklahoma. The money did not last, though, and she was only able to complete a single term before she was forced to return to Texas.
At the age of 23 Bessie found herself living in Chicago with her brothers, working as a manicurist in a local barbershop. It was here that she was first exposed to the wonders of early flight, listening to the stories returning air force pilots would tell whilst getting a trim. Inspired by these thrilling stories she took a second job in a chili restaurant to help pay for flying lessons, despite neither black people nor women being allowed to join flying schools. Fortunately she was able to gain support from the editor of a Chicago-based African-American newspaper, Robert S. Abbott of the Chicago Defender, and prominent African-American banker Jesse Binga, who between them helped publicise and pay for her flying lessons. To get over the hurdle of the U.S. flying school bans it was recommended that Coleman travel to France, where there were no such restrictions. In an early example of her strong-minded and intellectual nature, she immediately attended a French language school in Chicago and having learnt the language promptly left the United States for Europe. Arriving in Paris at the end of November 1920 she spent the next 6 months learning to fly before finally achieving what no black woman had done before - obtaining a pilot's licence. Determined to be the best flyer she could, Bessie continued to take flying lessons under the tutelage of an unnamed ex-WW1 French ace before returning to America in September 1921.
Despite widespread media attention in America at her achievement, Bessie was quick to realise that if she were to make a living as a civilian pilot in her home country then barnstorming was pretty much the only way to go. Again showing remarkable prudence Coleman, still having found no-one in the U.S. willing to teach her the advanced flying skills she would need, returned to France to undertake further lessons. Touring Europe she met famous Dutch aircraft designer Anthony Fokker and visited his factory in Germany where she was given more training by the chief test pilot. Now fully versed in all aspects of advanced flight, she once again returned to the U.S.A. where, billed as "Queen Bess", she wowed crowds around the country in various Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" biplanes - earning her the well-deserved title of "The World's Greatest Woman Flier". Resolute in her desire to perform the most difficult stunts and understandably vocal in promoting African-American aviation she toured the country for the next 4 years giving lectures and exhibition flights. During a visit to Orlando, Florida she befriended a local vicar and his wife, who all but adopted her as a daughter; remaining in Orlando Bessie opened her own beauty parlour with the aim of making enough money to buy her own aeroplane.
In April 1926 this she finally did, purchasing another Curtiss JN-4 in Dallas, Texas. Sadly, however, it was this aircraft that would be her downfall. Bessie was in Jacksonville, Florida, at the time of the purchase so the aeroplane was flown back from Dallas by her 24-year-old mechanic and publicity agent William D. Wills. He was reportedly forced to land three times along the journey due to the terrible condition the aircraft had been kept in by its previous owner. Despite its obviously dangerous shortcomings and against all the advice of friends and relatives, Bessie went up (as a passenger) in the Jenny with Wills on the 30th April 1926 to practice for a parachute jump she intended to perform the following day. At 3,000ft the aircraft suddenly went into an uncontrollable dive and spun into the ground. Bessie was thrown from the cockpit and sadly died on the ground; Wills was also killed instantly when the Jenny impacted the ground and exploded. Detailed examination of the wreckage subsequently revealed a wrench for maintaining the engine had been left in the machine, causing the controls to jam.
Bessie Coleman's tragically early death at the age of 34 was, despite her undoubted fame, largely ignored by all but the African-American press. In spite of this, over ten thousand mourners turned out for her funeral in Chicago and over the many years following she was honoured with several roads, schools and other public buildings being named after her, to say nothing of various museum exhibits, commemorative stamps etc.
Now can be added to that list a Barbie doll designed in her image (I have to admit not seeing much of a likeness, although as I said at the top of this post dolls are not really my metier), with a snappy-looking aviatrix get-up featuring flying suit, boots and initialled cap. It is splendid to see such a previously-overlooked trailblazer of (black) women's aviation marked in this way and I commend Mattel for choosing to highlight this historically important woman. If it can also encourage young girls of any colour to take an interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) Learning and aviation in particular, then so much the better.
Another favourite subject of mine now; an aircraft from a different war, which has featured on these pages many times before - the Supermarine Spitfire.
In this case it is the fascinating and largely untold story of the secret production lines set up in and around the city of Salisbury in Wiltshire following the bombing of the Supermarine's main factory in Southampton at the height of the Battle of Britain. While that facility recovered from the attentions of the Luftwaffe, nearly a dozen top secret production sites were being hurriedly established in such unlikely locations as motor garages, bus depots, sheds, back gardens - even hotels and bedrooms for a variety of smaller parts. These small-scale assembly lines were nevertheless able take the pressure off the remaining factory in Castle Bromwich in the Midlands and went on to produce over 10,000 Spitfires, a frankly amazing achievement made all the more so by the fact that the majority of the workers were unskilled locals - young women, boys and older men overseen by just a few skilled engineers.
This astounding feat has only really come to light in the last four years - having remained mostly forgotten in the intervening eight decades - thanks to the hard work of a local charity and historians, following the creation of a documentary by a Salisbury-based filmmaker. Featuring interviews with surviving members of the workforce (whose admirably stoic reticence in respecting the secrecy surrounding the work - much like the Bletchley Park codebreakers - meant that even their own family members were unaware of their involvement until the documentary came out) the Secret Spitfires film was a welcome and long-overdue acknowledgement of the incredible efforts and sacrifices made by the people of Salisbury during some of the darkest days of the Second World War.
Inspired by this documentary local residents set up a charity in June 2019 with the aim of creating a lasting memorial to these sterling workers and their hidden accomplishments in the form of a replica Spitfire to be placed at one of the shadow factory's sites, now part of Salisbury Rugby Club. I'm delighted to see that in the intervening year enough money was raised to make it a reality and last month the full-scale fibreglass Spit was completed at the specialist manufacturers in Norfolk. It now awaits its final erection on the site in Castle Street, Salisbury, (when Covid permits) which will also serve as the terminus of a splendid-sounding tourist trail complete with blue plaques at other known locations of the factories in the city area.
Once again this is a welcome example of civic pride and recognition of an important aspect of local [WW2] history and one I am very pleased has come to fruition. It certainly sounds as though it will prove of great interest to both the people of Salisbury, for whom this stirring story of their townsfolks' role in the war effort will be a new and exciting one to them, as well as students of Second World War history (myself included) and I congratulate everyone involved in seeing it through successfully.
For this post I thought I would do something a bit different and publish a little essay I first wrote nearly 17 years ago, on the 23rd November 2003. Done purely for my own personal enjoyment (long before I became aware of such a thing as blogging) and to keep my writing - and handwriting, it originally having been handwritten - skills from college honed, it was one of two pieces I composed for a planned series based on people I considered my heroes and which features as its subject one of my abiding interests - aerial warfare in the First World War. I'm on a particular kick in that direction at the moment and as it happens to be close to the 103rd anniversary of this chap's death on the 23rd September 1917 I thought it would be quite apposite to give it the light of day here (and possibly continue the series in future). So without further ado I give you:
Leutnant Werner Voss (German Air Service), 13th April 1897 - 23rd September 1917
To some people, my choosing as a hero a man responsible for shooting down so many aircraft and sending many gallant Allied pilots to their deaths during the First World War may be seen as odd and unpatriotic. However I hold many Allied fighter pilots in equally high regard; [Lanoe] Hawker, [Louis] Strange, [James] McCudden, [Arthur] Rhys-Davids and [Albert] Ball to name but a few. In fact, I have the greatest respect and admiration for all the pilots of both air services, British and German, who took part in those early aerial combats. Voss’s story in particular, though, is the stuff of legend.
I do not intend to go into great detail regarding Voss's military career, but merely give a brief résumé of his war service up until the awe-inspiring dogfight in which he died.
Voss was only sixteen when the war began in 1914, but he managed to join the German cavalry (Uhlans) and saw action against the Russians on the Eastern Front (later earning him the nickname "The Krefeld Hussar"). The Eastern Front was a notoriously tough battlefield (though not nearly as hellish as the Western Front) being a snow-covered frozen wasteland, with no trench system to speak of; attack and counter-attack alike being constantly made by either side's cavalry. For a 16-year-old to be mixed up in this kind of warfare is quite impressive.
In 1915 Voss transferred to the German air service, no doubt attracted by the newness and excitement surrounding this emerging type of warfare. Like many of his peers he began by flying in two-seat reconnaissance aircraft, before becoming a scout pilot and joining [Oswald] Boelcke's Jasta 2 in November 1916. This squadron was a breeding ground for hero aces; aside from Boelcke, Manfred von Richthofen was also present, and soon befriended the young Voss.
By April 1917 Voss had shot down 28 Allied aircraft, a feat that earned him the coveted Pour le Merité (also known as the Blue Max), an award also gained by Richthofen. At the latter's personal request, Voss was given command of his own squadron, Jasta 10, in July; Jasta 10 being part of Richthofen's much larger Jagdgeschwader, or "Flying Circus". All of this while he was still only 19.
His rate of scoring slowed at this point as the pressures of command were felt by him, but he soon received a boost in the form of the latest type of fighter aircraft, the Fokker D.R.1 triplane, which began to replace the ageing Albatros and Pfalz machines. Voss's, in fact, was one of only two pre-production models, delivered to him in August. Richthofen, who now also flew the new Fokker, found it slow and difficult to fly, but Voss revelled in its amazing manoeuvrability and fantastic rate of climb.
This differing opinion regarding the Triplane helps to show the different personalities and temperaments of von Richthofen and Voss, despite their friendship. Von Richthofen's dislike of the new aircraft probably stems from his tactics, that of the hunter – cunning and analytical; hit and run, don't take on what you can't handle and make the enemy fight on your terms, not theirs. Voss's methods were markedly different. Like the British aces Albert Ball and Arthur Rhys-Davids, Voss would attack regardless of the odds. He was a great believer in breaking up formations of enemy aircraft; fighting at close quarters so that the pilots would be more concerned about the risk of colliding with, or shooting down, one of their own rather than the silver-grey Triplane of Voss. His style of fighting played to the strengths of his aircraft, that of manoeuvrability and climb rate. Voss's attitude was gung-ho, atypical and the opposite of von Richthofen's. Who is the better fighter pilot is a matter of opinion; each had their strengths and weaknesses. Voss's tactics, however, stir the imagination more.
It was these tactics that enabled him to pile on another 20 kills by the end of September 1917, bringing his total score to forty-eight, a mere 13 less than von Richthofen. Indeed, von Richthofen called him "my most redoubtable competitor" – high praise from Germany’s top-scoring ace of World War One.
Voss was due to go on leave on the 23rd of September, but was desperate to reach the half-century before he did so. He flew a patrol in the morning, when he shot down his 48th victim. Some pilots were fearful of flying when they had leave imminent, believing it to be tempting Fate and therefore bad luck. Voss evidently did not believe this, for he took off again that evening, a little after 6 o'clock, in his Fokker Triplane with two Pfalz DIII scouts for company. There was a great deal of aerial activity that evening, with several British squadrons flying. It was the rearmost flight of one of these, 60 Squadron flying the fearsome SE5a, which first spotted Voss's formation. This flight included two up-and-coming aces, Captain Robert Chidlaw-Roberts and Lieutenant Harold Hamersley. Avoiding the two Pfalz they dived in to attack Voss, whose amazing aerobatic skills now became apparent. Manoeuvring free of the attack, Voss turned the tables, firing on the two SEs and scoring hits. As he drove the enemy back towards the lines, Voss's antics attracted two flights of the well-documented 56 Squadron, also flying SE5as. With Captain James McCudden leading and Lieutenant Arthur Rhys-Davids also in attendance they tore down after Voss at close to 200mph.
Voss was not unaware of the danger, so he turned to face it. Flying at McCudden, firing as he came, he scored several hits before he flashed past. The British pilots, unable to understand what had just happened, swung round to get after him, only to find that Voss had also turned and was coming back at them. Firing once more, he scored several good hits on Keith Muspratt’s machine, irreparably damaging the engine and forcing him to land.
By this time Voss was by himself, the Pfalz pilots having departed. He too could have left at any time, the climb rate of his Fokker being superior to that of the SEs'. He elected to stay and fight on, confident in his ability to out-manoeuvre his antagonists. Whilst some people may put this down to typical German arrogance, I rather think it was an act of the greatest bravery and selflessness to take on such overwhelming odds. Said Bowman after the fight, "that left him in the middle of six of us, which did not appear to deter him in the slightest."
Time and again the British pilots were forced onto the defensive by Voss's tactics; another SE5a was forced to retire, a write-off, thereby giving Voss a claim of 50 aircraft destroyed. Slowly but surely, however, the fight was drifting westwards, towards the Allied lines. At this point, a red-nosed Albatros joined the fight, and eleven more enemy scouts were seen at high altitude, but six Spads and four Sopwith Camels were keeping them otherwise engaged. McCudden was afforded a brief chance for another attack, but as he did so Voss had already lined up and was firing in return. Another SE attacked at the same moment as McCudden, yet Voss was able to manoeuvre free from both attacks. Arthur Rhys-Davids persistently tried to dive into attack Voss, yet each time the Triplane dodged his bullets. After one such occurrence Voss appeared at a broadside position to another SE pilot, Flight Commander G. H. Bowman. Bowman tried to press home his attack, but in an outstanding move Voss applied full rudder, slewing sideways and firing on Bowman, much to his amazement. This manoeuvre, however, took up much of Voss's concentration. Enough, in fact, for him not to notice that Rhys-Davids had managed to get on to his tail. For a distance of thirty yards Rhys-Davids emptied an entire drum of ammunition into the Triplane, fatally wounding its pilot. "Oh", said Rhys-Davids after the event, "if only I could have brought him down alive!"
Every pilot who faced Voss that day held him in the highest esteem. Bowman wrote, "It was not until later that we actually heard that it was Voss in the Triplane. Our elation was not nearly so great as you would imagine." McCudden's diary entry says it all, and is in many ways a fitting epitaph:
"As long as I live I shall never forget my admiration for that German pilot, who single-handed fought seven of us for 10minutes. His flying was wonderful, his courage magnificent,and in my opinion he was the bravest German airman whomit has been my privilege to see fight."
Here we have another interesting article both in and of itself and also as a further example of modern technology being put to good use in boosting knowledge of the past.
As with the recent story about "Facts Discs" for classic cars the technology is again the ever-present QR code, which allows smartphone users to access information digitally from a website or online database. In this case, however, the information takes the form of historic and previously lost footage of one of Wales' first aerodromes.
Only rediscovered three years ago this remarkable piece of film - shot by a local chemist and amateur photographer and donated by his daughter - is the surprising proof that the small mid-Wales town of Llandrindod Wells was at the forefront of British aviation in the years between the wars, with its own airfield based in the town's Rock Park. As the article explains, the expansion of civil aviation in Britain just before and immediately after the First World War meant that towns and cities up and down the country were queuing up to get municipal airports built in their vicinities, off the back of aerial tours such as Sir Alan Cobham's Flying Circus (coincidentally I recently just finished reading the autobiography of journalist and filmmaker William Courtney (entitled Airman Friday) who served as organiser and press officer for Cobham (as well as for Amy Johnson and Jim Mollison) and who wrote at length about his and Cobham's efforts to encourage local authorities to invest in airports in the '20s and '30s). Clearly Llandrindod Wells was no exception, thanks to its forward-thinking and air-minded councillors who foresaw the benefits of having an aerial link from an otherwise remote part of the country. That link quickly blossomed to include daily flights to such national hubs as London, Birmingham and Cardiff, not to mention the provision of local joy-rides and regular air displays. It must have been a truly exciting and inspiring sight for the people of this little Welsh town to see aeroplanes taking off regularly from their local park to destinations around the country. The optimism of the idea is almost palpable and who knows where it would have led had not the Second World War intervened? But intervene it did and, along with advances in aircraft design, it signalled the death knell for many grass strip airports like Rock Park.
Now thanks to the fine work of local history site History Points the people of Llandrindod Wells and visitors to Rock Park can learn about this fascinating aspect of the town's history when they take a trip there by scanning QR codes placed at the site of the airstrip, which will allow them to view this incredible footage of a pioneering airport that - if only for a short time during the Golden Age of aerial travel - put this little corner of Wales on the map. Once again this is a welcome use of "smart" tech to help teach future generations about local history in a relevant, engaging way and is something I hope we continue to see more of.
Another podcast to add to the list of those I posted about a month ago and again one of particular historical interest, celebrating as it does the 90th anniversary of aviatrix Amy Johnson's amazing solo flight from England to Australia over the course of nineteen days from the 5th to the 24th May 1930.
Amazing is just the word to describe her achievement considering she had only learned to fly less than a year previously, in July 1929, and by all accounts had barely 75 hours' solo flying experience when she took off from Croydon Aerodrome on the 5th May 1930 with the aim of beating the 15 days' record flight time to Australia that at the time was held by the pioneer Australian aviator Bert Hinkler.
Amy Johnson and her aeroplane Jason in India, May 1930
As it turned out events conspired against Amy and she missed out on the record by only 4 days, however she was still rewarded with a CBE in the 1930 Birthday Honours and is rightly remembered as the first Englishwoman to fly solo to Australia (and later, in 1932, breaking the record for a solo flight from England to South Africa).
The enormity of her accomplishment(s) and the manner in which they captured the public's imagination at the time can best be appreciated through the sheer number of people both in England and Australia who turned out to greet her on her arrival/ return, as well as her having a popular song written and recorded in June 1930:
Her diary and notes from the Australian flight forms the basis of this series of podcasts created by the Amy Johnson Arts Trust, a charity based in Amy's home town of Hull, and which recreates day-by-day her remarkable journey in what is a very immediate and vivid performance. They are, as the Trust's director suggests, an excellent and very timely way to mark Amy Johnson's remarkable feat and her important role as a pioneer of women's aviation. I look forward to listening to them over the coming weeks and hope they will prove popular.
While researching for this post I also came across a recently uploaded amateur production from 2010 by Cambridge theatre company BAWDS, which looks worth watching, and of course the 1942 film They Flew Alone starring Anna Neagle as Amy is also highly recommended by this blogger.
Dear me, has it really been three months since my last post? I suppose there's no getting away from the fact that I've had something of an impromptu blogging break, but here I am - like the proverbial bad penny - turning up again and I must say it's already beginning to feel like I've never been away. Let's hope I can sustain that feeling, get back to a post every once in a while and not become stuck in another rut!
So, what has caught my vintage eye (I actually have two you know) in the last few weeks? Read on to find out!
In my local seaside town, no less, came the discovery at the end of May of a part of the hugely important and super-rare coding machine used by the Germans in the Second World War - the Lorenz encryptor, bigger and even more complex brother of the famous Enigma machines. Discovered, in of all places, eBay! Misidentified as a telegraph keyboard, and up for auction at a mere £9.50, it was only sheer luck that the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park came across it - sitting in the seller's garage under a pile of junk! Surely this must rank as one of the ultimate eBay "finds"?! Well done to those eagle-eyed museum chaps for spotting this important part of computing and Second World War history, even if it is incomplete. Proof, if proof were needed, that there are still treasures to be found on that site - and on that note, while we're all searching around for that next bargain, keep an eye out for the Lorenz's motor, which is still yet to be found.
In related news a Second World War messaging post, one of 30 set up at the behest of Churchill in the face of the expected invasion of Britain in 1940, has been given listed status following its rediscovery in a disused Norfolk country house in 2012. One of only twelve so far discovered, it was sadly damaged by fire in 2014 but with this latest news and the encouraging noises being made by Historic England (previously English Heritage) one hopes that it can be restored and opened to the public as a museum detailing that pivotal point in our nations history and the important part these "In Stations" and there civilian operators would have played had the worst happened.
One man doing his best among hundreds to ensure the worst did not happen was Czech fighter pilot Emil Bocek, who trained as a teenage ground mechanic in 1940 before going on to earn his wings and fly Spitfires in combat from 1944. Later rising to the rank of General and now aged 93, he returned to Biggin Hill last month to fly a dual-control Spitfire over the skies of South London - the first time he's taken the controls of that wonderful aircraft in 70 years. Dobré pro vás, General Bocek!
Work continues apace on the reconstruction of Eric, the world's first functioning robot (as previously reported here). It sounds as though both the Science Museum and the chap building the replica are unsure of just how things will turn out, so it sounds like the plans that have been found are either incomplete or not detailed enough. Nevertheless I look forward to hearing of Eric's reawakening, in what will no doubt be the closest form to the original that the existing information will allow.
This last article is an absolute pip, just the kind of feel-good vintage news story I enjoy featuring on the blog. In this four-year centenary of the First World War there have been - and no doubt will continue to be - many such stories of descendants of Great War combatants uncovering fascinating accounts or honouring their relatives in some way (and rightly so!). This story of two brothers recreating the very aeroplane their grandfather flew in the Royal Naval Air Service during the Gallipoli campaign is a particularly stirring example and I'm delighted to see them make a success of it in time for a local air display. A more perfect way of honouring their grandfather's memory and providing an important glimpse into his life and exploits in the RNAS I couldn't imagine. Well done chaps!
That's me done for this post, then, but I sincerely hope and intend it not to be my last for another three months! I'm looking forward immensely to getting back into this blogging racket and with stories like these to choose from I certainly shouldn't be short of inspiration. Until next time folks, tinkerty-tonk!
Spitfire flight over Southampton marks 80th anniversary Can it really have been five years since I last wrote about the anniversary of the Supermarine Spitfire's first flight?! Well, here we are again, and now even more unbelievably this beautiful and historic aircraft - perhaps the greatest aeroplane ever built - is an incredible 80 years old. To celebrate this remarkable milestone two Spitfires have once again performed flypasts over the Solent on the Hampshire coastline, taking in all the sites that played a part in this fantastic machine's conception - the former Supermarine factory in Southampton where the Spitfire was designed and built, Southampton Aerodrome from which the prototype K5054 took off on that March day eight decades ago, and the grave of its creator, R.J. Mitchell.
It would be going over old ground for me to tell (briefly) the story of the Spitfire's conception, so suffice it to say it's good to see this anniversary marked and the reverence in which this aircraft is still held. One would have hoped for slightly more in the way of celebration perhaps, but maybe we'll have to wait for the 90th or 100th anniversaries to see something really special. With luck we'll see these and many more; let's hope that the 50-odd airworthy examples will continue to be so for decades to come - the ultimate testament to this glorious piece of aviation design.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana" (as the late, great Sir Terry Wogan once said) and once again time has indeed flown by - like an arrow, if not like a banana - since my last post on here. You can't keep a good blogger down, though, so here I am again with a news item from last month featuring a wonderful lady adventurer who this blogger greatly admires.
I've featured the adventures of modern-day aviatrix Tracey Curtis-Taylor on this blog before, specifically when she set out a couple of years ago in her 1942 Boeing Stearman biplane to retrace the route taken by the pioneer female pilot Lady Mary Heath from England to Cape Town, South Africa in 1928. That journey was subsequently made into a B.B.C. documentary and jolly fascinating it was too.
Towards the end of last year Ms Curtis-Taylor undertook a new challenge - to follow the same route Amy Johnson took on her famous England-Australia flight of 1930. In the same Stearman biplane as before Ms Curtis-Taylor took off from Farnborough in Hampshire in October to make the 14,000-mile journey across Europe, the Middle East, India, South-East Asia and Australia, just as Amy Johnson had done more than 80 years previously.
As the above article explains, Ms Curtis-Taylor landed at Sydney airport on the 9th January, thereby completing this massive trek and following in the slipstream of one of her inspirations and a proper heroine. Tracey Curtis-Taylor is both of these as well, not only for her remarkable recreations of historic endurance flights but also for helping to keep the memory of these early aviatrices alive today, not to mention her involvement in encouraging more young women into the field of mechanical engineering.
Tracey Curtis-Taylor mentions "not wanting to stop [flying]" in the above clip and the good news is she that she isn't intending to any time soon. That report briefly mentions the shipping of her aeroplane to Seattle for Boeing's centenary celebrations next year, but before that Ms Curtis-Taylor has stated her intention to fly her biplane across the breadth of the United States as her next adventure and I for one can't wait to follow her progress on this new feat of endurance, continuing to emulate the pioneer women pilots of the early 20th century. Congratulations, Ms Curtis-Taylor, and the best of luck on your next endeavour!
**Further good news in relation to this story is that the B.B.C. will be broadcasting another documentary later this year following Tracey Curtis-Taylor's England-Australia flight. No details have been released as yet but expect it to be shown on one of the main B.B.C. channels some time in the Spring.**
This month's post focuses on the the fascinating B.B.C. article (linked above) regarding one of Britain's most obscure and long-forgotten aviatrices - Constance Leathart.
The Beeb has gone into some detail about this remarkable lady in their article for the regional Inside Out programme, so I do not intend to repeat all of it again here. Suffice to say it appears that Miss Leathart was every inch a most indomitable woman, at a time when women needed such spiritedness in order to break into the male-dominated world of early aviation.
Her appearance in the majority of the surviving photographs of her shows this plainly; usually sporting a short side-parted haircut and often wearing shirt, tie and tweeds she could easily pass for a man. This allowed her to embark on many fantastic-sounding aviation adventures, from air races to long distance flights (not to mention repairing aeroplanes on the side!), culminating in being one of the first women to sign up for the Air Transport Auxiliary during World War Two. Even then her adventurousness continued unabated - as it would if you were able to fly myriad military aircraft, particularly the Spitfire!
Behind the exciting lifestyle and the overturning of gender stereotypes, though, seems to me to be a very sad portrait of a lonely outsider. Leathart herself admits to dressing in the masculine style in order to try to please her father, who had wanted a boy child. To see her self-deprecating notes on her own photographs is heartrending; her exclusion from most ATA publicity shots on the grounds of her not being of the "pin-up" style is equally saddening (and in the photo featured in the accompanying article of Miss Leathart standing with the rest of the ATA women one can even sense there a difference and an element of exclusion - whether on Leathart's part or not we may never know).
Her spirit of adventure still not sated, following her war service she became a UN Special Representative to the Greek island of Icaria - helping to provide food and medical supplies by air. She eventually had to give up flying in 1958 and retired to a farmhouse in her native North-East, where she spent her time caring for rescued donkeys. She never married and, when she passed away in 1993, in a final display of tragic seclusiveness requested to be buried in an unmarked grave (thankfully her friends disregarded this and marked her resting place with a stone from her outside swimming pool).
Although it's splendid to see Constance Leathart's life be recognised, I do feel she (and the other aviatrices of her time) are worthy of whole programmes to themselves. Hopefully one day we shall see even greater recognition of these pioneering female pilots.
On a related note I'm thrilled and delighted to see that modern-day aviatrix Tracey Curtis-Taylor, who presented the B.B.C. report on Miss Leathart (and whose recreation of Lady Mary Heath's 1928 Cape Town-Goodwood flight I blogged about two years ago) is currently recreating Amy Johnson's epic 1930 flight from England to Australia. By now somewhere over the Middle East and on her way to India, Ms Curtis-Taylor aims to land her vintage 1942 Boeing Stearman biplane in Sydney some time early in 2016, before shipping the aircraft to the west coast of the USA to continue across that continent and so make it a genuine round-the-world trip!
I heartily commend Ms Curtis-Taylor for striving to keep the memory of these early aviatrices alive through her own flying adventures and I admire her greatly for both this and the courage and drive it must take to undertake such expeditions. Those of you in the U.K. (or with access to B.B.C. output) may remember that a documentary of Ms Curtis-Taylor's South African flight was broadcast shortly after its completion and I'm pleased to see that discussions are underway to produce a further series of programmes covering the Australian and American flights (and beyond!) for airing in the first half of 2016. Until then I'm sure you will join me in wishing Ms Curtis-Taylor continuing good luck as she makes her way to Australia. Soft landings and no dud engines!
With the the centenary of the First World War now well underway and the first Remembrance Sunday of the four-year long commemorations today, events and projects marking this momentous milestone and remembering all those involved in the conflict are coming thick and fast.
The subject of this post is one of the smaller projects in the grand scheme of things, but no less important for that - the latest replica of Baron Manfred von Richtohofen's infamous red Fokker Triplane. I say "latest" as the Fokker Dr.1, to give it its proper designation, is one of the most popular World War One aircraft on the reproduction circuit thanks to its distinctive design and association with the greatest fighter ace of the time. Indeed in many respects the red triplane has almost become synonymous with the Great War in the air, especially in the United States where many of them reside and where companies exist to manufacture kits.
The Dawn Patrol Rendezvous reenactors' Dr.1 at the National Museum of the U.S Air Force, Dayton, Ohio, 2009 (source)
This new addition to the ranks resides and was built in Britain, however, by two enthusiasts at the Derby Aero Club. Unlike some other replicas, which are often ¾ or 2/3 scale, this one is also full-size and remarkably accurate to the original design - a testament to the owners' knowledge and attention to detail. Hopefully we will see it at events around the country over the next four years (and beyond) - having experienced first-hand the Great War Display Team any further airworthy replicas are always welcome - perhaps they will all fly together one day!
With several high-profile examples of flyable aircraft surviving from the Second World War it is easy to overlook the machines from the earlier conflict - original and airworthy types of which are few and far between. Thus it falls to these modern replicas, built where possible to the highest detail, to remind us what flying and aerial fighting was like during the First World War and to honour the young men who flew them. This Derby-built example is a worthy inclusion, and may there be many more!
Well here I am again, having survived a second week at the Temple of Mammon (I'd love to write this blog as a full-time job but would struggle to make it pay, I'm afraid!), with the exciting vintage news of the moment - the arrival of the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum's Avro Lancaster in Britain! The only other airworthy example in the world after the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight's City Of Lincoln, C-GVRA Vera (or FM213, the Mynarski Memorial Lancaster) has joined its sister in the UK for a month-long series of displays - the first time two Lancasters will have been in the air together for over 50 years.
As reported earlier in the year Vera was flown across the Atlantic Ocean in stages before landing at RAF Coningsby, the home of the BBMF and its Lanc. Having undergone various post-flight checks and practice formations, it has now begun being displayed around the country in the company of the British example
Following a departure display for the press at Coningsby (with the planned flyover of Lincoln Cathedral on the 13th sadly postponed because of bad weather) the Lancs spent this weekend at Airbourne, the Eastbourne International Airshow in Sussex, plus several other displays around the south-east. Over the next month they will appear at various events around the country, including Duxford, Shoreham and Goodwood - plus two special invitation-only events at Humberside International Airport in Kirmington, Lincolnshire. I'm also delighted to note that, as I'd hoped, the pair will go to the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre where a third powered Lancaster - Just Jane - is based and perform a fly-past while Jane does a taxi run. What an image that will be, I'm sure!
A full list of the planned displays is available on the CWHM's website - I hope there's one near you? Clacton's probably my nearest, although it's on a weekday so I'm unlikely to make it ;(. Perhaps Duxford, we shall have to see. Or I could just camp out in my parents' garden since the flippin' things flew over them yesterday(!), no doubt on the way back from one of the Kent shows.
At any rate, the press is rightly making a big thing out of this once-in-a-lifetime event and there is bound to be more coverage as the month goes on. It really is quite an amazing sight to see these two four-engined monsters in the air together, made all the more poignant by the thought of how much they represent - the 125,000 pilots who flew in RAF Bomber Command during World War Two and the 55,000 who did not return, plus the 7,300 Avro Lancasters that were built between 1942 and 1945 of which only 17 survive today. It is a fitting homage to all these men and machines that these two aircraft should fly together again, as the veterans' comments prove. I hope in their appearances around the country they will inspire and enthral onlookers and remind each generation of the sacrifices their vanished comrades made, and that this will not be the last time two or more Lancasters are seen in the air together at one time.
Back in June of 2013 I blogged about the news of the latest evidence pointing to the popular theory regarding the disappearance of noted aviatrix Amelia Earhart and her co-pilot Fred Noonan during their attempted around-the-world flight in 1937. This theory has it that Earhart and Noonan missed their scheduled refuelling stop at the tiny (< 1 mile square) Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean and flew on in their twin-engined Lockheed Electra until forced to come down on one of a group of then-uninhabited atolls known as the Phoenix Islands - probably the larger Gardner Island (now known as Nikumaroro).
This hypothesis is by no means a recent one - Gardner Island was identified as a potential emergency landing ground almost immediately after the Electra's disappearance and reconnaissance flights were made over the atoll during the initial two-week official search, with pilots noting "signs of recent habitation" but no "answering wave from possible inhabitants" when they zoomed low over the rocks. Later private searches including around the Phoenix Islands produced no evidence of pilots or machine and their ultimate fate has been the subject of investigations and conspiracy theories for three-quarters of a century.
The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHER) - a non-profit organisation founded in 1985 for "aviation archaeology and historic preservation" - have been pursuing the Gardner Island theory for several years now, culminating in last year's expedition to Nikumaroro where sonar scans of the surrounding sea bed threw up an odd shadow 600ft below the waves that could be the remains of the Electra.
Now TIGHER are following up another lead with the discovery of a previously unknown photograph (which can be seen in the original Miami Herald article) of Earhart's Lockheed Electra at Miami Municipal Airport on the 1st June 1937, shortly before take-off for the next stint of the journey to Puerto Rico. In it, a detail not seen in any other photo of the time - a sheet of metal covering what would previously have been a window. More intriguingly, no record of this repair exists among all the documentation linked to Earhart's flight.
Among the many artefacts that TIGHAR have brought back from Nikumaroro - which include a 1930s-style woman's shoe (similar to ones worn by Earhart), bearings & tools, metal zips and pieces of Plexiglas almost identical in shape and design to that used on the Electra - is a section of aluminium panel bearing 1930s construction techniques. It is this piece of metal that researchers are now closely comparing to a computer-enhanced blow-up of this never-before-seen image in the hope that they can match the rivet patterns and so prove beyond doubt that Earhart and Noonan did not crash into the Pacific Ocean but did indeed make it to Gardner Island, where they may have even survived for a time before succumbing to starvation and exposure.
If it can be proved that the aluminium panel seen in this new picture matches the piece recovered from Nikumaroro then it must surely settle beyond doubt one of the most enduring mysteries in aviation history - one that has remained unsolved for 77 years. While this would not be the first bit of tangible evidence suggesting the Electra landed on Gardner Island, and with the Pacific Ocean ditch still a possibility, if the rivet patterns do match it will - taken with the other items found - be as conclusive as possible proof that the last resting place of Amelia Earhart, one of the greatest women pilots of the 20th century, has been found. I for one certainly look forward to finding out!
