KING FIRST TO FLY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21264, 19 February 1931, Page 11

KING FIRST TO FLY.

Although Colonel Moore-Brabazon holds No f 1 certificate of the Royal Aero Club, he was not the first Englishman to fly. It will astonish most people to know that the first Englishman to fly in a heavier-than-air machine was none other than the King when he was Duke of York. My authority for this (writes A.D.C. in the Daily Mail) was a personal friend of the late Sir Hiram Maxim (an American), and he relates the story as so vividly told by the famous inventor just before his death at Streatharn. Sir Hiram had just completed his first flying machine, the model of which is to he seen to-day in the Science Museum, South Kensington. The motive power was steam generated in a geyser-like apparatus burning gasoline. The experimental work was done at Baldwyn’s Park, Erith, and the cumbersome machine was placed upon a wooden pair of rails made of Georgia pine, along which the trial attempts were made. One afternoon while Sir Hiram was conducting trial runs, who should appear upon the ground but this Duke of York, accompanied by his naval equerry. After the duke had been initiated into the principles of the invention, the party stopped on to the platform and the inventor started the engine. The machine began to move forward along the rails, and the royal passenger was deeply interested when Sir Hiram Maxim suddenly announced he was about to make the machine rise. “ No, no,” yelled the equerry. “ Stop.” But it was too late. The duke had thoroughly entered into the spirit of the thing, and cried out. “Lot her go! ” And she did —four feet from the ground, So not only was the King the first Englishman to fly, but also the first royal personage, and not King Albert of Belgium, ns is generally understood.