I am not sure if I have posted this here before or not. If I have forgive me. The picture came to me from my late uncle effects who was in the R.F.C./R.A.F. in 1918. K107 was the prototype Vickers Vimy Commercial, making its first flight on 13th. April 1919 at Joyce Green Airport in Kent. Initially it bore the interim civilian registration K 107. It was then allocated the civilian registration G-EAAV. This aircraft was used on an attempt on the Cairo to Cape Town record with a prize of £10,000 from the Daily Mail. Flown by Vickers pilots S. Cockerell and F.C.G Broome it crashed at Tabora, Tanganyika on 27th. Feb. 1920. Today I found an article in the "Times" relating to this flight and thought I would share it with you. Empire air odyssey became a crash course in survival - Times Online Empire air odyssey became a crash course in survival Accident-prone airmen courted disaster daily Marcus Leroux Times Archive: see how we reported the adventure in 1920 The plan, hatched in the offices of The Times after the end of the Great War, was a simple one: fly an aircraft from London to a far-flung corner of the Empire — Cape Town — and hand a letter from King George V to the Governor of South Africa. It would mean crossing the war-scarred continent of Europe, flying over the Pyramids, and tracing the path of the Nile into the deepest heart of unmapped Africa, The flying men, plus a correspondent from The Times, were to traverse desert, swamps and, apparently, cannibal-infested jungles, in a rickety biplane. And why? To see if they could. It may sound like a tall tale lashed together from Biggles and Around the World in Eighty Days, but the extraordinary story of derring-do has been brought to light by a collection of press cuttings, photographs and a captain’s log to be auctioned this month. The log, bound in a Morocco-bound scrapbook and compiled by one of the two pilots, recalls the gung-ho days when aviation was a rather inexact science. Dozens of articles in The Times charted the adventurers’ exploits as they discovered volcanoes, encountered lions and found that “all African natives” answer to the name George. But as a test of a new route to link the Empire by air, the voyage was only a partial success, since it involved several crashes and the near-death of its only passenger. The flight set off from Brooklands Aerodrome in Weybridge, Surrey, on January 24, 1920. The portents were not good, as the twin-engined Vickers Vimy biplane almost failed to make it beyond South London. Captain Broome’s log, printed in The Times, notes: “Soon ran into mist and clouds near Croydon, and nearly took the towers off Crystal Palace.” Chalmers Mitchell, a biologist and special correspondent for The Times who was to record scientific observations, take photographs and test the viability of taking passengers along the route, would not have been assured by the philosophy of Captain Broome’s co- pilot, Captain Cockerell. “The art of flying”, he observed, “is in crashing well.” The Vimy eventually spluttered across the Channel. “Don’t know where the hell we are, but steering 12deg. on compass . . . Saw a large town thro’ clouds”, the log states. “Think it must be Paris.” By Lyons, the explorers had met their first hostile natives: “Nearly caused strike asking for 600 gallons of juice on a Sunday night . . . French mechanics don’t appreciate our Billingsgate accent.” Captain Broome and Captain Cockerell, with their two mechanics, somehow made it to Cairo, via Italy and Malta, where they were met by Dr Mitchell. He had been recruited to The Times by Lord Northcliffe, then the proprietor, under whom he had served at the Department of Enemy Propaganda during the First World War. Lord Northcliffe had earlier, as proprietor of the Daily Mail, sponsored the first flight across the Channel, but The Times insisted that the Cape Town flight was neither publicity stunt nor race: it was a scientific endeavour. This high-mindedness may or may not have been related to a rival South African plane entering the field, hot on the heels of The Times aeroplane. Flown by two First World War aces, Colonel H. A. van Ryneveld and Flight Lieutenant J. Q. Brand, who had “the distinction of ‘clawing down’ a German bombing machine while night flying over London”, the South African Vimy was unencumbered by a passenger and could fly at night because it had no interest in scientific observation. It was odds-on to beat the Times plane to Cape Town. Undeterred, the British crew ventured on, but suffered their first crash before they had got out of Egypt. South of Khartoum, the Vimy was forced to land on dangerous ground. Chalmers wrote: “We were unable to reach water through the bush and swamps, so lunched on sandwiches and tea while obliging natives fetched water from the Nile.” The “obliging natives” would no doubt have been a relief for the explorers. As they set off, The Times had noted of this treacherous leg of the journey: “It is to be hoped that storms do not drive the machine far to the west of its course, as a forced landing among the Niam Niams is not to be faced with equanimity, as these folk have been known to eat their visitors.” On another enforced stop, this time in “hostile Dinka territory”, Dr Mitchell recorded how armed natives watched on as the aircraft failed to take off. By now, the aircraft was verging on being clapped out and Captain Cockerell, who joined the Royal Flying Corps on the second day of the war and had a German bullet in his hip, admitted that his “flying nerve” was in peril for the first time in his life. On March, February 27, in modern-day Tanzania, the aircraft suffered its last crash, losing a wing in the process. Dr Mitchell was in the process of writing a dispatch for the newspaper. He was then struck by malaria, which delayed his return. Perhaps delirious, he had to be talked out of proceeding to Cape Town on a bicycle. The South Africans were left to claim the glory, though their voyage was no smoother, as they destroyed two aircrafts along the way. The two pilots were awarded knighthoods and a banquet was thrown for them at the Savoy, at which they were praised by Dr Mitchell and the Minister for War, Winston Churchill. The collection is to go under the hammer on June 25 at Mullock’s in Shropshire.
As usual the the pilots got the glory and the names of the two other crew were forgotten They were Sergeant Major James Wyatt and Mr. Claude Corby, the mechanic and rigger.
From the Times in the '20's. THE MACHINE. MODERATE SIZE AND GOOD SPEED. 1,000 MILES NON-STOP FLIGHT CAPACITY. The machine is- a Vickers-Vimy-Rolls-Commercial, slightly modified for the journey. It has already made a number of successful flights, several journeys to Holland among them. One hundred machines of this pattern have been ordered by the Chinese Government and are now being built at Weybridge. It had originally room for 15 passengers in her oval-shaped cabin, but in order to. find space for an extra fuel tank and for lockers in which to carry spares,-food, and kit much of the seating accommodation has been removed. The aeroplane originally had circular windows, but oblong sliding windows were substituted immediately after the flights over the North-Sea. The machine is not of great size when compared with others that have made, long-distance flights, her span being only 67ft. The most striking outward feature about her is the grey stream-lined fuselage,. in the forefront of which is the cockpit For; the pilots. Immediately behind the cockpit is the cabin, entered at the forward end by a door that rolls-up like the cover of a roll-top .desk, and. separated from the cockpit by a thin partition fitted with glass windows. At the other end of the cabin is a second door, hinged at the bottom and fitted on the inner side with steps, so that when it is let down it form a ladder. The cabin, which is covered over, is connected with the cockpit by a speaking-tube and furnished with an altitude recorder and a speed indicator. Only three of the armchair seats have been left. Of these two are forward for the use of the mechanic and., rigger, and the third is at the far end of the cabin and will be used by Dr. Chalmers Mitchell; The whole of the centre floor space is occupied-by the enormous fuel tank and the-lockers, but it; is possible to step over them and to move from one-end of the cabin to the other. The measurements of the machine are as follows: Overall length: 47ft. 8ins. Overall height: 15ft. 2ins. Span: 67ft. Gap: 10ft. Chord: 10ft. 6ins. Area of main planes: 1,330 square ft Weight -per sq. foot: 9.4 pounds Weight per. horse power: 17.0 pounds The engines are two Rolls-Royce “Eagle” Mark viii., each of 350 horse-power. These engines are identical with those used on the machines that carried the late Sir John Alcock across the Atlantic Ocean and Sir Ross Smith to Australia. The machine has a speed near the ground of 115 miles per hour, reduced to 105 miles at an altitude of 6,000ft. and to 99 miles at 10,000ft. The aeroplane can climb to 6,000ft, in 17 minutes and to 10,000ft. in 48 minutes. The standard Vickers-Vimy-Rolls can carry out a flight of 450 miles, with a single charge of petrol, but the extra fuel space fitted for the journey to. the Cape will enable her to carry 350 gallons of petrol, enough for a flight of a thousand miles without recharging. Flying on one engine only, the machine develops a speed of 70 miles per hour, and lands at 45. For the greater part of the present journey she will probably be throttled down to 80 or 85 miles per hour. SUPPLIES CARRIED. Only a minimum quantity of spares, kit, and rations, are-being carried. The- party arranged to collect their tropical clothing in Cairo. There will also, be on board a supply of water, a store of compressed food, for use in an Emergency, 46 gallons of oil and 22 gallons of, water for . the radiators. The spares include valves; carburettors, and sparking plugs for the-engines, and for the aeroplane itself; dope, fabric, wire, one-wheel complete with tire and inner tube, wheel repair outfit, axle, machine covers, and. propeller covers. There, are also being carried a camera, a cinematograph camera, some rifles and ammunition, while Dr. Chalmers Mitchell is taking, a certain amount of apparatus for preserving small specimens. The instruments, which are arranged on a board immediately in front of the pilots seats, are themselves- worth studying,, and have been supplied by Messrs. S. Smith and Sons, and include an engine revolution indicator, an airspeed indicator—two types, one registering in miles and the other in knots—an altitude recorder, thermometers for recording the heat of the oil and the radiators, and a time trip clock.
Two replicas can be seen - one in Hendon and one in Australia: Vickers Vimy airplane pictures & aircraft photos - RAF Museums Classic and Historic Australian Aircraft - Adelaide
She be the original G-EAOU (God 'Elp All Of Us) of the Smith Brothers. Wow, that makes her the only original Vimy left? Here's what the replica built in the '90s has been up to recently: Vimy Aircraft Project
Great stuff, but why do modern articles on WW1 biplanes always talk of "rickety" (or "frail") biplanes? They were very strongly built; they had to be to cope with the conditions they had to operate in, to say nothing of combat stresses.
Hi All, I was fortunate enough to get up close to the aircraft in which Steve Fossett re-enacted this flight. Here's a shot of the nose section. View attachment 1849 Cheers Owen
Out of interest, Fossett's co-pilot was Lang Kidby who then re-enacted a flight from England to Oz in An Avro Avian several years later. He also did the Peking to Paris re-enactment rally and documentary in ancient cars (all 1903 or thereabouts from memory) and is now planning a rally for restored WWII Australian soft skin military vehicles starting in Crete and finishing at Normandy for June 6 next year, the 65th anniversary.
