PIONEERING PLACES OF BRITISH AVIATION

Sub-titled 'The Early Years of Powered Flight in the UK', Britain in the 19th century was at the forefront of powered flight and across the country many places became centres of innovation and experimentation as increasing numbers of daring men took to the skies. It was in 1799 at Brompton Hall that Sir George Cayley Bart put forward ideas which formed the basis of powered flight. Widely regarded as the father of aviation, his ancestral home is the 'cradle' of British aviation. There were balloon flights at Hendon from 1862, although attempts at powered flights from the area later used as the famous airfield do not seem to have been particularly successful. Despite this, Louis Bleriot established a flying school there in 1910. It was gliders that Percy Pilcher flew from the grounds of Stamford Hall, Leicestershire during the 1890s. He was killed in a crash there in 1899 but had plans for a powered aircraft which experts believe may well would have enabled him to beat the Wright Brothers in becoming the first to make a fixed-wing powered flight. At Brooklands, attempts were made to build and fly a powered aircraft in 1906, even before the banked race track was completed, but these were unsuccessful. But on 8th June 1809, A. V. Roe made what is considered to be the first powered flight in Britain from there - in reality a short hop - in a machine of his own design and construction. The book also includes the first ever aircraft factory in the railway arches at Battersea, Larkhill on Salisbury Plain which became the British Army's first airfield, and Barking Creek where Frederick Handley Page established his first factory. Plus London's aerodrome and Britain's first military airfield in chapters including 'Married Officers Need Not Apply.' Tiddly up and down these pages with a summary of key locations and events at the front and many quotes from astonished onlookers. 246pp, photos and fact boxes.