Perth
Fields at the uppermost section of Necessity Brae – Woodhead of Mailer Farm and Windyedge Farm – hosted in the early 1930s at least 4 impressive ‘Air Circuses’ by competing air display businesses.
The first of the aerial circuses to call on Perth is likely to have been Captain C. D. Barnard’s Air Tours, which performed at Woodhead of Mailer on 26 and 27 September 1931. The company had over 100 other presentations under its belt when it came to Perth. Barnard himself was an aviation celebrity having broken several world records: England to India and back in 7½ days, Cape Town in 20½ days – both in a Fokker F. Vlla, and the first non-stop flight from England to Africa (Tangier) – the 2,480-mile return journey in a DH.80A Puss Moth was accomplished in 21½ hours.
Barnard’s Air Tours offered trial flying lessons under the tutelage of James Allan Mollison, who in 1932 married one of the most eminent female pilots of her day, Amy Johnson. Like his partner, Glasgow-born Mollison was an aviation record breaker, often flying with Johnson.
Aviation displays also thrilled the crowds assembled at Woodhead of Mailer, Barnard himself providing the leading edge of the company’s 8-plane presentation in his record-breaking Fokker that he dubbed ‘The Spider’. Approximately 40,000 people were carried on flights by Barnard’s Air Tours. In 1919, Barnard was employed by Sopwith Aviation Company, and was briefly assigned to operating Sopwith Gnu (K-101) on pleasure flights from the beach at Southport, England. On 10 June 1919, his engine caught fire and managed to crash land on the beach, thus saving the life of his passenger. Barnard however, received considerable burns to his own face and arms, that required extensive hospitalisation.
Barnard’s flying circus pilots that utilised the following aircraft, some of which would have been seen in Perth.
- C D Barnard
- Mr F S Crossley
- Mr E D Ayre (Spartan)
- Mr R A C Brie (autogiro)
- Mr L H Stace of Henlys (Avian)
- Mr C E F Riley (Spartan)
- Capt E Cummings (Ladybird)
- Mr W F Parkhouse (Gipsy Moth)
- Neville Stack
- Jim Mollison
- Mr. R. L. Palmer (Fox Moth India 1933)
- Mr. J. B. Pugh (Fox Moth India 1933)
- J. Mackay (Tiger Moth India 1933)
- E. R. Andrews (Spartan three-seater India 1933)
- W A H B Burnside (Segrave Meteor India 1933)
- J. R. Hatchett (Fox Moth India 1933)
- Mr A Auping (Fox Moth India 1933)?
- Mr C E Longmore (BAC Drone India 1933)
1927 Fokker F. VIIa G-EBTS ‘The Spider’.
1931 Spartan 3-Seater I G-ABJS.
Cierva C.19 Autogiro G-AAYP.
1930 Avro 616 Sports Avian G-AAXH belonging to Henlys Ltd.
1930 Desoutter, a licensed Dutch Koolhoven F.K.41 design, manufactured by Desoutter at Croydon Aerodrome.
1931 Potez 36.17 ‘Ladybird’ F-ALJC/G-ABNB.
The Cierva autogyro was also flown for the first time in Perth, amazingly it was said hanging practically motionless in the air before landing on a literal pinhead.
The autumn of 1931 was a busy time of year for air circuses in Perthshire. Not long after the visit of Barnard’s Air Tours – 16-17 October 1931 – “the world-famous” Berkshire Aviation Tours Ltd came to Woodhead of Mailer. Their advertisements for the display are rather fascinating for they not only pronounced the air circus as providing “the most exciting display of flying ever given and a roar from beginning to end” and “selections of music and announcements by loudspeaker”, but also offering a novel attraction, ‘Bombing the Bridal Pair’.
To coincide with the air circus, the Perth Alhambra [movie] Theatre in Kinnoull Street showed Hell’s Angels, Howard Hughes’s “Epic of the Air starring Jean Harlow”. As well as directing and producing this multi-million-dollar WWI aviation action film, Hughes had made forays himself into the world of early aviation. His most famous flying project was the Hughes-H4 Hercules (NX37602), known to all as the ‘Spruce Goose’, a 111-ton wooden troop-carrying 8-engine beast of a plane that was a complete failure. The largest flying boat ever constructed, ‘The Goose’ only managed a short test flight (piloted by Hughes himself near Long Beach, California) of only 26 seconds – rising to just 70 feet in the air.
Barnard and his team might have been good pilots, but their sense of navigation was poor. An intended September visit of Barnard’s Air Tours to the Auchterarder area was advertised by posters announcing an air circus to be held at West Mains, Gleneagles – the wrong place. This location had been confused with West Mains Farm on the Strathallan Estate, also the wrong place. The circus finally took place at Easthill Farm, Auchterarder on 18 October 1931. Easthill Farm is at the west end of Auchterarder, at the end of the Tullibardine Road where it meets Easthill Road.
Another aviation circus, that of the Scottish Motor Traction Co. Ltd (which had run a garage on Perth’s Dunkeld Road for several years, SMT), took place on Tuesday, 22 August 1933. Advertised as “Scotland’s Own Air Circus…the most comprehensive, spectacular, and daring display of Scotland’s progress in aviation”, the event offered flights to the public at 5 shillings, flying performances with Dragons, Fox Moths, Tiger Moths, and Avro Cadets, which included ‘stunting’, ‘crazy flying’, and ‘bombing’, a race around nearby landmarks, and exhilarating parachute plunges by parachutist A. C. Fairley.
The following year saw another air display company in Perth, that run by the ground-breaking aviator Sir Alan Cobham. Cobham’s flying air circus toured Britain during the summer months. Between 1932 and 1935 upwards of 4 million spectators visited their aerial exhibitions, and almost a million passengers were treated to aerial experiences known as ‘5-bob flips’.
Cobham’s foremost competitor was the British Hospitals Air Pageant company whose retinue included famous female pilots, including Pauline Gower, who during the Second World War set up the women’s division of the Air Transport Auxiliary; Mary Bruce, a record-breaking aeroplane, motor car, and powerboat racer; and the pioneering aeronautical engineer Dorothy Spicer. During her time of employment by Cobham, Gower utilised her own modified Fairey Fox (G-ACAS) to take some 6,000 paying customers for airborne joyrides. British Hospitals Air Pageant came to Perth on 12 September 1933 and despite it being but a few weeks since the Scottish Motor Traction Co. Ltd event, large crowds were present. The display included several innovative aspects including ‘bottle shooting’, ‘crazy flying’, and ‘wing walking’.
Having such large crowds in this part of Perth created transport difficulties. On Sunday, 27 September 1931, with large numbers of vehicles amassing on the air circus, a Perth Corporation omnibus taking locals out to the air show collided with a motor car on Needless Road – fortunately, no one was injured in the crash.
Pitlochry
British Hospitals Air Pageant returned to Perthshire on 19 July 1934 with a show at Aldour, Pitlochry in which they presented the newly-named ‘Sky Devils’ air circus. As the company’s name suggests they might do, monies raised from the air circus were given to local hospitals. One feature of the Aldour event was the exhibition of Charles William Anderson Scott’s record-breaking aircraft that he had piloted from England to Australia in 8 days and 20 hours. Scott’s de Havilland DH.88 Comet had won the London to Melbourne Air Race, considered the most prestigious air race of all. Another feature of the event was the presence of the biggest ‘air liner’ ever seen at a touring air display, the ‘City of Glasgow’ Armstrong Whitworth A.W.154 Argosy (G-EBLF) of Imperial Airways. Fitted with a 1,500 horsepower Argosy engine, the aircraft could carry 26 passengers. For air shows, the Argosy was stripped of its cloakroom and luggage areas thus allowing 4 additional passengers per flight.
Landing on the North Inch and at Glenfarg
Two aircraft travelling in the vanguard of a flight of planes travelling south to Dunfermline, which had been at the Pitlochry event, encountered bad weather, reducing visibility and had to fly low. The two were seen over Perth with one of the aircraft after reaching Moncreiffe Hill, doubling back and was seen flying dangerously low over the spire of the West Church in Tay Street. It then circled the North Inch for some time until eventually landing on the Perthshire Country Cricket ground, knocking down the chains protecting the wicket.
The second aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing at Glenfarg.
Note: Sky Devils after which the air circus was probably named, was a (pre-code) 1932 aviation comedy movie staring Spencer Tracy and Ann Dvorak produced by Howard Hughes. Hughes figured he had made such a success with ‘Hell’s Angels’ (1930), he’d try it again with much of the same aerial footage and new stars. Sky Devils was not a success. The Hughes Aircraft Company is most famous for producing the aircraft, Spruce Goose in 1947.
Crieff
Crieff was visited by the Sky Devils Air Circus on Friday 6 July 1934. The event took part at Kincardine Farm, which is just below MurrayField Loan Park in Crieff, to the west of Maxton Road/ McOwen Avenue.
The Argosy Liner aircraft mentioned was the ‘City of Glasgow’ Armstrong Whitworth A.W.154 Argosy (G-EBLF) of Imperial Airways. It unfortunately was too large to land at Kincardine Farm.
Note: Amy Johnson had first made a name for herself with her solo flight to Darwin, Australia in a de Havilland DH.60 Gipsy Moth (G-AAAH), ‘Jason’. Alongside her husband, Johnson set several long-distance flight records in the 1930s. She served as a pilot with the Air Transport Auxiliary during the Second World War transporting aircraft across the UK. On 5 January 1941, enroute – in bad weather – from Prestwick Airport to RAF Kidlington, in an Airspeed Oxford, First Officer Johnson found herself off course. She bailed out before her plane crashed into the Thames Estuary. The reason for her crash is unclear. Two theories dominate the debate: that she ran out of fuel or was shot down by a British anti-aircraft battery. Her parachute deployed and Johnson landed in the sea. An attempt to rescue her was made by Lieutenant-Commander Walter Fletcher who manoeuvred his ship HMS Haslemere to aid her, but this failed. Fletcher, during the rescue attempt, dived into the icy sea. He perished a few days later due to his exposure to the intense cold.
Aldour in Pitlochry is on the left as you enter from the south. Now a small industrial estate and private housing, one being named Aldour Gardens.
Research by Ken Bruce
