Aeroplane Monthly 1993-10
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??? - Early birds
It is Saturday, September 20, 1913. The second Aerial Derby is in progress at Hendon and that is Gustav Hamel airborne in his Morane-Saulnier No 15. The 60,000 spectators watched him win the Derby and collect 200 Sovereigns and the gold cup.
Col John Seely, who became War Minister in 1914, about to fly as a passenger with Capt Dodd in a B.E.2a at Netheravon on the occasion of Prime Minister Asquith’s visit to the station, circa 1913.
Arriving at Hendon from Brooklands to attend the second Aerial Derby on the morning of September 20, 1913, Farnborough test pilot Ronald Kemp landed rather fast in this R.E.1 (Reconnaissance Experimental).
Frenchman E. Vitry had both his legs broken and suffered facial injuries when this War Office Breguet biplane crashed at Farnborough on March 7, 1913, after descending rapidly from 600ft at the end of a flight from Hendon. Vitry was flying again a few weeks later.
Lt Wilfred Parke's Avro Type G military biplane leaves Amesbury Station for Salisbury Plain, presumably to take part in the 1912 Military Aeroplane Competition held there during August. It was in this machine that the pilot recovered from the famous Parke’s Dive (a spin) on August 25 and lived to tell the tale of how he escaped from this misunderstood manoeuvre. Parke was killed flying a Handley Page monoplane on December 15 that year.
Col Samuel F. Cody giving a demonstration in his 1911 Circuit of Britain biplane at Farnborough in the presence of King George V. It was in a later and even larger machine that Cody was killed at Farnborough on August 7, 1913 following structural failure. A procession 100,000-strong and a mile in length marked his funeral at Farnborough.