Blackburn Type I monoplane at Beverley.

During the week beginning Saturday, 11th October 1913 the Hull and East Riding Aero Club arranged and publicised a flying meeting at the Newland Park aerodrome site in Hull. The first aeroplane to be flown at the meeting was a 50 H.P. Bleriot flown by Mr George Lee Temple on 11th and 12th October 1913 but what then happened to this machine is not yet known. There is then a gap in the flying events quite possibly because everyone went back to work.

On Saturday, 18th October 1913 a publicised flying contest to fly a route over East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire was organised as part of the same flying event at Newland Park. Two aeroplanes were due to contend for a fifty pound prize to fly a course from Newland Park and that would see landing checkpoints at (Figham) Beverley, (Skerne Leys) Driffield, Market Weighton, Goole, Scunthorpe and Barton on Humber before crossing The Humber to return and land at Newland Park. Harold Blackburn was one pilot who was down to attend from a early stage in the organisation, he would fly an 80 H.P. monoplane belonging Robert Blackburn. Blackburns undertook an aviation tour of the East Riding around this period and used their mono-plane for this purpose at Hull. This must have been a Type I monoplane and it appears to have been the same one that had been used to win the War of the Roses Air Race earlier in the month. Initially a Handley Page bi-plane that was to be purchased by the Provincial Aviation Company and was to have been flown by Ronald Whitehouse was due to be the competition but this was later withdrawn. A Bleriot 50 H.P monoplane flown by Lt Evelyn Copland Perry was the eventual late-replacement. The Bleriot was not tuned prior to the start of the race so it was worked on during the race day morning of 18th October 1913. At noon a trial flight was made, unfortunately the Bleriot was only in the air for a few minutes when a forced landing had to be made but where is not known. The newspapers that relate the incident suggest some damage occurred as it was not then used for the race proper. At 14.00hrs Harold Blackburn took off from Newland Park to attempt the circuit without competition. A mechanic was flying with him in the second seat to attend to the aeroplane at each of the required landing stops. The monoplane reached Beverley, it overflew the Figham area and made two attempts to land in the checkpoint field. The eventual landing was heavy which caused a tyre to burst and other damage resulted. News later filtered back to the paying crowd at Newland Park that the competition was over. The damaged Blackburn mono-plane was taken to a garage in Beverley where repairs were made.

Pilot - Mr Harold Blackburn.

Passenger - Mr Mark Swann.