Avro 504k G-EBSE? at Cottam.
Over the weekend of 6th to 8th September 1930 the Bridlington Gliding Club and the Driffield and District Gliding Club arranged a gliding meeting at their shared gliding site at Cottam. Unsettled weather was a problem across the weekend but flights were made each day. On 6th September 1930 Mr Summerfield, owner of an Avro aeroplane that was flown from a site at Bridlington during the Summer of 1930 for tourist flights was brought to Cottam and used for a similiar purpose there. In the late afternoon a flight was made but shortly after taking off a problem with the magneto caused the pilot to make an immediate and hurried landing. He was carrying two child passengers at the time but landed without incident in a field near the gliding site but on what was described in newspapers as being at the other side of the valley. The engine problem appears to have been corrected overnight and it was flown again the following day which may have included wing-walking.
Avro 504 G-EBSE was owned by the Cornwall Aviation Company that Summerfield was a part-owner of. This appears to have been the aeroplane that was used by him for various passenger / tourist flights made at Bridlington and also at other locations during this period though I readily admit that it may have been others that the companies he was involved with owned.
Pilot - Mr Samuel Summerfield.
Two child passengers - Name unknown.
Samuel Summerfield was born in 1894 in Derbyshire though later moved to Melton Mowbray. He was one of the names that have been forgotten in early British aviation. As early as 1909 he appears to have been building and flying his own gliders and in 1911 he was in business there selling full scale and model aircraft and engines. Taking up proper flying training he was awarded his Royal Aero Club Aviators' Certificate (Cert.No.292) following training at the Britol School, Brooklands in September 1912. He appears to have owned his own Bleriot monoplane in 1914 and also flew a Watson Rocking Wing Machine in 1914 (I would recommend anyone reading this to Google this type to get an idea of how early in powered flight this was). In June 1914 he survived what could have been a serious crash in his Bleriot when the rudder control wire broke, he crash landed but managed to keep his feet high and avoided any serious injury. He appears to have been flying as a civilian instructor during the first half of the First World War. He worked for the Midland Flying School, Birmingham in 1915 and the Bournemouth School in 1916. What he did in 1917 and 1918 is not yet known but he may have joined the RFC as a flying instructor and later with the RAF. After the First World War he undertook more civilian flying, at airshows taking paying passengers into the air. This was almost certainly what was happening when he crashed near Doncaster in 1922. He was the pilot of Avro 504 G-EAZW that crashed near Bradford on 3rd May 1924 while on a similar paying passenger flight, the aircraft was being flown in misty conditions and flew into telegraph wires and then crashed into a tree, before crashing onto a football pitch at Hartshead Moor Top. This line of work continued until at least 1926 while serving in the RAF Reserve. He was involved in a more serious accident on 27th July 1926 when he was flying Avro 504 G-EADP over Morecambe and his passenger fell out, wearing no parachute he was killed. In 1929 he was a member of the Cornwall Aviation Company that owned Avro 504 G-EBIZ, G-AAYI and G-EBSE. By 1930 he appears to have been doing civilian flying at Bridlington but with his company Wolverhampton Aviation Co.Ltd. He relinquished his commission in the RAF in 1931. He would later leave the UK to become a gold prospector in Australia and died there in 1967.