Handley Page W.10 G-EBMR "City of Pretoria" at Scarborough Racecourse.
Handley Page G-EBMR shown here with aircraft of the Flying Circus.
In July 1932 Sir Alan Cobham's Flying Circus payed a visit to Scarborough. This aircraft was landing at the racecourse in fog for the next air show venue when it collided with one of lorries that had delivered the equipment for the Flying Circus. It badly damaged the port lower wing and then ran into a ditch smashing the undercarriage. The aircraft was later repaired on site by Imperial Airways after a new wing was brought in and it flew out a few days later to rejoin the Circus on the south coast of England. The airshow at Scarborough took place on 7th July 1932.
In addition to this incident and the Gipsy Moth incident listed as damaged at Scarborough on this date two of the other aircraft of Cobham's Flying Circus that were arriving at Scarborough found the area completely covered in a thick sea fret. They eventually found a hole and dropped through it but found they had landed on a wide beach at Scarborough with the tide coming in. After a short while they took of again and found the display field with this already crashed Handley Page W10 in situ.
The Handley Page aircraft was built by Handley Page Ltd at Cricklewood and first registered on 25th November 1925, it was purchased by Imperial Airways based at Croydon in 1926 and used on their International routes. The aircraft was given the name "City of Pretoria". It was hired by National Air Days Ltd., (The official name of Sir Alan Cobham's Flying Circus) and was believed to have been based at Stag Lane in April 1932. It suffered repairable damage in this incident at Scarborough. It was later reported
as being withdrawn from use in September in the same year. It was later purchased by Sir Alan Cobham in March 1933 and was later destroyed in a
Cat.W/FA crash at Hal Far, in Malta, on 22nd September 1934. The registration cancelled in November 1934.
Pilot - Mr Hugh Coleman Johnson, chief pilot.
Passengers - Support staff of Cobham’s Flying Circus.
Mr H C Johnston (right) and Sir Alan Cobham. Hugh Johnson was later heavily involved in Cobham's air to air re-fuelling trials. Just before WW2 he appears to have been serving in the RAF but based in Canada still working in the air to air refuelling aircraft. He was recalled to the RAF when war was declared. In the 1960s he was working for called Flight Refuelling Ltd, now Cobham plc. It's probably fair to say he was one of the world's most important people within the field of air to air refuelling.
