THEY SAID HE WAS MAD!

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18579, 29 September 1928, Page 19 (Supplement)

THEY SAID HE WAS MAD!

A. V. Roe Tells Story of Struggles to Success. Thrills and Fun at the Dawn of Aviation.

ON a summer’s day nearly a quarter of a century ago, a young marine engineer lolied against the ship’s taffrail watching a white speck in the cloudless sky as it circled down towards the vessel. The wide swoops of the descending albatross fascinated the young man. Why can’t men do that? was the thought that hanjmered his brain.

The young engineer was Alliott Verdon Roe, who. six years later, was to make aerial history with the first heavier-than-air flight in England. Today he is head of that huge concern, Messrs A. V. Roe and Companv. whose aircraft has probably done more than any other to establish fly-ing throughout the world. It was an “ Avro ” machine that brought down the first Zeppelin in the war, and an AvroAvian that took Hinkler to Australia in fifteen and a half days; an Avro, also, was the first enclosed monoplane to fly*. Mr Roe is still a young man, though his hair is greying slightly at the temples. He is modest, and prefers to talk of the present and future of aviaition than of his past triumphs, and to hear' him dwell on the living age to come is to live in a world of tremendous speeds, heights, and distances.

A Giant Helicopter. He left the sea in 1902, having won a Russian competition for an automatic coupler for railway coaches, and was a motor engineer for four years.

Then he turned his thoughts to aviation.

Early in 1906 he applied for the secretaryship of the Aero Club, and was interview-ed by two memb.ers of the committee, the Hon C. S. Rolls and Mr Stanlev Spooner. Another appli

cant, an elderly- man. waited outside, and was completely forgotten until Mr Rolls srtddenly exclaimed: “For goodness’ sake,’ Spooner, go and see that old man; he’s getting older and older every- minute! ” *

Roe obtained the job, but resigned a few days later to go to America and work on a helicopter for Lord Armstrong, of Armstrong-Whitworth. The helicopter had two thirty-foot lifters with 120 blades each. It was so heavy that instead of removing it from its shed for trials, they built a shed that could be wheeled clear of the machine!

First Real Flight. He returned to England to learn that a newspaper was offering three prizes to the value of £250 for the model aeroplane that flew the farthest. Roe entered three and obtained the highest prize with a model biplane that travelled a hundred feet! It was driven by elastic.

Here is his own story as tbld to an interviewer in “Tit-Bits”:—

“ At once I began work on a mancarrying machine on the lines of my winning model. I took it to Brooklands, where they were offering £2500 for the first to fly round the track before the end of 1907. Unfortunatelv my- engine did not arrive! until early in 1908, and I received notice to leave Brooklands. I managed to persuade them to let me stay- in a shed separated from the track by railings over which I had to lift my ’plane each time. I asked ’to have these railings made detachable, but was refused. So I made them detachable in secret!

“ I was not allowed to sleep in my shed, so I used to say good night to the gatekeeper and then climb over the fence and so get back to my shed! I used to try out the machine in the early morning before any wind got up Two out of every three trials ended :'n a crash. In fact, I think I hold the ‘casualty championship’ for air pioneers—l crashed over a hundred times!

“Towards the end of May I began to feel that success was drawing near, and on June 8, 1908, I took out my machine in the morning, saw the front wheels were three feet above the ground, felt that I was on an even keel, and knew myself to be truly flying for the first

time. Hitherto I had managed to get the front wheels off, but the rear wheels had alwaye dragged along the ground. For a few delirious moments I was actually conquering the air! True, that first flight was only over a distance of seventy-five feet at a height of three feet, but it was the beginning. Jeers—Then Cheers. “I had to leave Brooklands and see! another home. I rented two railwa; arches in Lea Marshes, boarded then, up, and converted them into a fairh useful workshop and hangar. Those were exciting days. We u:ed to lo )k forward to a crash as the natural end of nearly every trial flight. Often th-.-machine would catch fire, and one o: my assistants used to tear after me on a bicvcle with a fire extinguisher! “Of course, everyone thought m mad. Local sightseers would come out to watch me and shout my nickname —‘Roe the Hopper’—after me. The police stepped in at last and threater ed that if I continued to risk my neck they would arrest me for attempte. suicide! About that time, however Bleriot ‘hopped”across the Channel, and people ceased scoffing at aviation. “It was while at Lea Marshes that I received a letter from a woman who said .she had gone to the river to drown herself, but the sight of my ‘stunts’ had horrified her to think I was risk ing my life, when she would so glad’/ lose her own. Would I let her pile* my machine? “I wrote back saying that if I did she would certainly smash it, but if she would delay her idea of drowning for a few months I would let her fly my new model. This gave her an objective in life, and many years after I heard from her that she had long :ince lived down her troubles and was hhppily married. “In 1910 I was allowed to go back to Brooklands, where the centre was converted into an aerodrome I built a 38 h.p. triplane, the first in the world, and together with a two-seater, on which I had recently jgiven my mother a flight, I went to Blackpool to attend an aeroplane meeting. Both aeroplanes were packed in two trucks—spare parts, clothes, cycles, almost everything we possessed. Then a spark from the engine caught the trucks and reduced them to ashes!

“T heard of this disaster on Wednesday evening and raced back to Manchester to build another. With odd bits in our workshops we slaved night and until Saturday night. On the ■ Sunday we took the machine in bits

to Blackpool and worked until the .Monday morning arsemb’ing it. The; engine arrived at ten m the morning and by two o’clock the ‘aeroplane’ war up. “The huge Bank Holiday crowd cheered enthusiastically, but they little knew their danger, for it was the worst machine we ever turned out. It jerkeo and barked its way through the air. raining oil on the cheering crowd' After three hair-raising circuits I mar iged to bring it down safely.” In 1913 Mr Roe and his compan produced the Avro 504 K type, on whic}' so many brilliant war pilots mastere light This type is still b*-ing manr factured, and is the standard trainir machine for the R.A.F. Mr Roe speaks beirt when he talks the future. “How did the Germans manage drop shells into Paris from a distant of seventy-five miles, do you think? he asked., “Merely by passing the she through the rarefied air where the pres sure is less. It is the same with aii craft. An aeroplane capable of travelling 220 m.p.h. at <rea-level could achieve 1000 m.p.h. at an altitude of twelve miles. “In any event, We can confident look for the 500 m p.h. machine in the course of the next fifteen or twenty years, a machine that will bring Nev, York within six hours of London! No doubt pilots and passengers will 1-*e enclosed in cabins with warm air pumped in. And if they reach a speed

of about 700 m.p.h. they will travel in complete silence, for the roar of the outboard engines will be flung back lief ore it oas a chance of reaching the cabin! ”