Dickson Primary glider at Saltergate.

On Sunday, 14th February 1932 this Dickson "primary" glider took off in a strong gusty wind from the launch site used in the early 1930s at Saltergate Bank. The glider remained in the air for around thirty seconds and the pilot was seen to fight with the controls before he was lifted from the seat and his feet slipped off the rudder bar. The glider went into a steep dive and crashed onto the hillside, upon crashing it was blown up hill and the pilot became trapped in the wreckage. He was removed from the wreckage and taken to hospital with two broken legs and a severely injured right hand. The pilot was not strapped into the glider and had he been so it was believed that he would not have lost his footing on the rudder bar.

The following weekend the Secretary of the British Gliding Assossiation and the Chairman of the Technical Committee of the BGA both made trips to Saltergate to see the wrecked glider and then walked to the crash site on the moor.

Pilot - Mr Erik Addyman, of The White House, Starbeck, Knaresborough, North Yorkshire. Seriously injured - broken both legs and the lower part of his right arm was amputated.

Erik Addyman was born in 1889 at Belmont House, Starbeck, following his schooling he trained as an engineer at Kitson's College in Leeds. During the First World War he initially worked at the Portsmouth School of Mines researching depth charges and later he moved to Dumphries, to the Arrol Johnson Engineering Works. In the 1920s he moved back to Starbeck and used his engineering back ground to build at least five motor cars. He also was a keen pot-holer and climber and was a reserve in the Mallory-Irvine Everest attempt in 1924. In the 1930's he designed and built a number of gliders and it was during a flight in one of these gliders that the accident detailed above occurred. The loss of his right arm hampered his driving. He died in 1963.

His sons were responsible for disposing of his aero-collection when he died and Flight International magazine ran a peice on his collection with the intention that it should be held in a museum. His collection included the remains of Carli Magersuppe's glider which crashed into the sea off Scarborough in 1930, a number of aero engines which Addyman had designed, and other gliders and parts of gliders. The Northern Aircraft Preservation Society in Stockport, Lancashire became the owners of these and it is believed that they are still in existance.

My thanks to Mr Richard Knight for the additional information about Erik Addyman.

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