END OF HENDON

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18768, 23 January 1923, Page 10

END OF HENDON

Hendon aerodrome, famed the world over as UlO pi aco where flying took place in the nioreer days of aviation, lias ceased to exist. : ‘Tho extension of the tube from Holders Green, instead of, as we had hoped, being an opening for civil aviation . and causing most of our sporting aviation to revert to the old aerodrome,” says Flight editorially, “has had an entirely different effect. The aerodrome is being split up into building plots, and thus the chance of restoring Hendon’s’ former greatness as an aviation centre vanishes for ever. Hendon was always connected with the earliest—the glorious—days of flying. Fiom the circuit of Britain to the Aerial "Derby in 1921, all important flying events took place at Hendon. Hendon was the scene of many early struggles to muster the air, and it was the scene of many a glorious race. Everybody who was anybody could bo found at Hendon on Saturdays and Sundays, and the popularity of tho aerodrome could be ganged by tho ‘gates.’ Although there was never a great deal of shouting and no big prizes, a week-end at Hendon was never wasted, and the Saturday races under the clever organisation of tho lutc> and ever-to-be-regretted Richard Gales, small ns they wore, were usually more full of entertainment than tho most formal flying meetings Waddon has seen. “And now Hendon is no more. AVith tho advent of tho tube, presumably the ground has become too valuable to retain for tho problematic use as an aerodrome, and has been given over to the prosaic, but immediately useful, purpose of carrying rows upon rows of ‘semi-detached.’ In a few years’ time we shall bo able to take our children up to the top of the hill by the old church—tho mere mention of tho edifice brings back memories—and point out to them that down there, just beyond tho railway, Britain grew her wings and made her early fledgling attempts at conquering the air; there worked many of the pioneers to whom Britain owes her position in the air to-day.”