How Percy nearly was the first to fly
In the world of aviation, Northamptonshire certainly has two claims to fame. There are probably more, but just two come to my dull mind on this dull, dull day!
On an October morning in 1911, William Rhodes-Moorhouse of Spratton Grange, took off from The Racecourse in Northampton with a consignment of Barratt's shoes en route for Hendon and that was the world's first cargo flight!
But 12 years earlier an even more important breakthrough almost happened and almost made the history books and almost brought more pride to our county.
It was in Stanford on Avon, a tiny village right on the River Avon.
The "big house" is Stanford Hall that has been home to the Caves, Verneys and Brayes since Tudor times and even to the present day the family has loyally supported public life here in the county.
But when the house was built, the river decoratively ran through the park separating it from the village.
So even though the village is in Northamptonshire, the house is in Leicestershire.
In the 1890s, Lord Braye's friend, Percy Pilcher, visited regularly and experimented with his flying machines in the park.
He was a lecturer at Glasgow University and had built a couple of "soaring machines" as he called them.
In 1891 he first flew his glider "The Bat" followed by "The Beetle" and "The Gull".
Then came "The Hawk" in which he broke the world record for flight.
It was a bamboo framed gliding contraption with huge wings and a rudder.
There was a race to be first in this new aviation business, so Percy had to work quickly.
Like many other pioneers of flying, he was eager to make a machine that flew aided not by air currents, but by a two horse-power oil engine driving two propellers, one under each wing.
His rival was the German, Otto Lilienthal, but he was tragically killed in 1896 when his glider crashed.
This left Percy as the favourite to build the world's first aeroplane.
By 1899 he was nearly there, he had made his new, magnificent machine; it was a triplane with a small engine that drove two propellers.
His dream had come true. So on September 30, Percy came back to Stanford where he planned to test his new triplane in front of hundreds of spectators who were both excited and curious.
The crowd was eager to see this crazy man attempt to fly.
Percy was eager to make the world's first powered flight.
He had it in the palm of his hand.
But he could not control the weather.
It was dreadful, it was wet and stormy and he was nervous about launching his new project and risking his precious new machine.
But good-hearted Percy, being the man he was, didn't want to disappoint the crowd so instead he decided to fly his good old record-breaking "Hawk", after all, he was more familiar with that.
Some years earlier Percy had presented a paper at Glasgow University, it began, "The history of experimenting with flying machines is a history of disasters . . ."
And so it was that as he was flying over the Northamptonshire countryside, the wire in the tail snapped.
"The Hawk" crashed to the ground and Percy died two days later.
A monument stands at Stanford, on one side are two words, "Icaro alteri" . . . To the second Icarus.
It would be another four years before two Americans, the Wright Brothers, would make their historic flight.
Five years ago, almost to the day, a plaque dedicated to Percy Pilcher was unveiled at Glasgow Airport to celebrate the 100th anniversary of powered flight.
The ceremony took place in the airport VIP lounge named The Pilcher Suite.
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Friday 10 February 2012
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