This Avro Gosport took off from Woodford on 22nd December 1926 for a well planned landing and publicity stunt on the mountain of Helvellyn. This incident was therefore not a flying accident but a stunt undertaken to claim to be the first aircraft to make a landing on a mountain in the UK. The pilot landed the aircraft on the flat top of Helvellyn, asked a witness on the ground to sign a paper stating the landing was made, then took off and returned to their home aerodrome of Woodford. Prior to being successful they first attempted this on 15th December 1926, but after taking off from Woodford and heading north towards the Lake District the weather became progressively worse so it was abandoned. The second attempt was made on 21st December 1926 but the winds were found to be too strong over the Lake District to make a safe landing so again they returned to Woodford. The aircraft involved is shown above (photograph via Mr David Earl). A.V.Roe & Co.Ltd. presented the Lancashire Aeroplane Club with the first Avro Gosport in April 1926 and it was flown in to Woodford by Bert Hinkler and presented to the club chairman John Leeming at a flying display. The photograph below shows that aircraft with John Leeming in the pilot seat and Bert Hinkler behind and it may well be the same Gosport as used in the Helvellyn landing. This superb photograph was found in Flight Magazine's web-archive.
Pilot - Mr John Fishwick Leeming.
Passenger - Mr Herbert John Louis Hinkler DSM.
John Leeming (pictured in the front seat) was born on 8th January 1895 at Chorlton and became interested in gliding at a young age. He built his first glider when just thirteen years old. In 1924 he and nine friends formed the first British civilian aero club; the Lancashire Aero club with John Leeming as their first Chairman and later President. He was awarded a Royal Aero Club aviators' certificate (Cert.No.8006) after training at Woodford aerodrome on 25th June 1926 but at that time listed his occupation as a cotton spinner. In February 1927 he was unertaking a flight from Chester to Manchester in G-EBPH when th aeroplane ran out of fuel, he force landed near Bucklow Hill and taxied up to a petrol pump at a garage he had spotted from the air before taking off again. In 1928 he founded Northern Air Lines (Manchester) Ltd who flew chartered flights. During WW2 he served in the RAF and acted as aide to Air Marshal Owen Tudor Boyd but on a flight between Malta and the Middle East the aircraft in which he was flying was forced down over Sicily and he was taken prisoner of war. He later convinced his Italian captors that he had had a nervous breakdown and they re-patriated him in 1943. After the war he wrote a number of books. He died on 3rd July 1965.
Herbert "Bert" Hinkler was born 8th December 1892 in Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia. At a young age he experimented with gliders in Australia before travelling to the UK and working for the Sopwith Aviation Company before the First World War. During the First World War he served in the RNAS as a gunner / observer and was awarded the DSM, Gazetted on 2nd November 1917. After the war he worked as a test pilot for A.V.Roe in Southampton and undertook numerous aviation feats and set many records of flying. He was awarded his Royal Aero Club aviators' certificate on 11th April 1927 (Cert.No.8092) but this was not after training anywhere specific - he appears to have just taken the qualification test. He flew the first solo flight from England to Australia in February 1928 for which he was awarded the AFC, Gazetted on 13th March 1928. On 7th January 1933 he left England to try to beat a faster solo flight to Australia but his aircraft was later found to have crashed on Mount Pratomango, in the Tuscan Mountains of Italy and he either died in the crash or of his injuries before rescue came. The crash site was not located for two months. He is buried in Florence, Italy. His photograph shown above was found on Flight Magazine'sweb-archive.
The area of the landing and the commemorative plaque.
