Eric Verdon-Roe:
After years of planning, January 2008 sees the official start of the celebrations of 100 Years of British Aviation, which is being co-ordinated by The Royal Aeronautical Society. I hope the combined efforts will raise the awareness of all the achievements of the early pioneers and A. V. Roe in particular.
The plans are now as follows:
THE AEROPLANES
The 1909 Triplane replica is nearing completion at the Manchester Museum of Science and Transport by the Avro Heritage Group.
According to Project Co-ordinator Michael Taylor:
?All flying surfaces are now structurally complete and varnished. Covering material and taughtening dope have been procured for the whole aircraft. The fuselage assembly has made good progress. All wooden structure is now complete and in the course of final assembly. Whilst the fuselage assembly has been underway, the opportunity has been taken to start the fitting of the tailwheel structure to the appropriate fuselage members. The most sensitive part of the aircraft as regards structural integrity is the propeller, its hub and blade attachments. A design for the hub has now been finalised and materials procured, the arrangements for the propeller blade attachments follow and there are now five blades finished to the point of final paint. Engine runs at the Anson Engine Museum have reached the point where further development is unlikely. Using a loaned Amal carburettor we have now recorded a steady 11bhp. The most recent running was achieved with a Dexion frame, this altered the vibration mode but would not, by any means, eliminate it. Reference to reports of 1909 suggest that significant vibration was experienced so this too may be a way in which we can achieve realism.?
I suspect this may be splendidly understated?.
Down at Brooklands Steve Green is progressing well with the Avroplane. Wing construction is nearing completion and on a recent visit I saw the wing coverings being laid and stitched. Here they have an advantage over Manchester as the biplane only had covering on the lower wing surface. The 50hp engine is also nearing completion and Steve plans to try it out on a buggy he has constructed using old Morris Minor parts. The spirit of Brooklands lives on!
The main air frame is now in place and the seat under construction. The original bamboo poles have had to be replaced by aluminium tubing to comply with modern regulations. These are to be painted in bamboo colour, including reproducing the bamboo rings, to add to the authenticity. The original control wheel has been cut out of a solid aluminium sheet, with the wood for the mahogany rim sourced from an old lavatory seat. A.V. Roe would have been proud.
Mercedes-Benz have kindly loaned vehicles to transport the Triplane to each location during the celebrations and we hope that both projects are on schedule for flight trials in the early spring. EVENTS
The Brooklands Centenary of Aviation: celebrations will now be focused on Saturday, 7th June 2008. A Garden Party event will take place in the afternoon. This will include taxiing trials of both the Avroplane and the 1909 Triplane. The overhauled Avro shed will be reopened and biplane replica therein. After these activities we will hold a dinner, by kind permission of our friends at Mercedes-Benz, at the recently opened Mercedes Benz World. This super-modern facility is a short walk from the museum.
The celebrations will echo the sentiments expressed on the tablet which was unveiled by Sir Alliott Verdon-Roe in June 1958 at the fiftieth anniversary celebration: ?From this area on various dates from 1907 to 1908 A.V. Roe made a series of towing flights and flight trials in aircraft of his own design and construction. These trials were made along the finishing straight of the motor racing track on this site. A.V. Roe thus became the first of a long line of famous pilots and pioneers of many nations who made air history on this flying field at Brooklands.?
This will be the main event celebrating A.V. Roe?s achievements in 2008.
A display area is to be provided at the Farnborough International Airshow. This will be for the duration of the Airshow (14th ? 20th July, 2008) and I am grateful for the support of Farnborough International and BAe Systems for arranging this. The Avroplane and Triplane will both be exhibited along with at least one replica of the Cody British Army Aeroplane Number 1, a replica Wright flyer and a Bleriot. It is planned that a number of Avro aircraft will be present for the public day flying display (19th and 20th July, 2008) including an Anson and a Lancaster and maybe the Vulcan.
Other celebrations scheduled for 2008 include:
Sunday, 6th July, 2008 Royal Aeronautical Society garden party at the Shuttleworth Collection, Old Warden. Wednesday, 15th October, 2008 Farnborough Cody centenary celebrations (venue to be announced). This will celebrate the centenary of the American?s first flight and the opening of a memorial to test pilots.
Plans for 2009 are being developed and will include a dinner in the new hall at The Imperial War Museum Duxford on Saturday, 23rd May, 2009, with a tribute by the Avro flying display on Sunday, 24th May, 2009.
On 12th July and13th July, 2009 you are all invited to The Lea Valley Heritage Festival near Walthamstow on Leyton Marshes just north of the 2012 Olympic site, the scene of A.V. Roe?s first flight in an all British Aeroplane (pilot, aeroplane and engine). In many ways, this was his most significant achievement. We plan an unveiling of the Triplane under the original railway arches that he leased in 1909. The trains rattling by above connect Liverpool Street Station and Stansted Airport.
The highly motivated team, inspired by Lindsay Collier, are planning a festival of the technological history of the Lea Valley, which includes being the home of Vauxhall, Lotus and London Transport buses. They have the support of local authority groups, Middlesex University and a number of the leading companies in the area led by Peter Rosen, Chief Executive of the well known printing group, Bovince. The two-day event will be free to enter and we hope to involve many schools in the area.
This will be the last of the planned A.V. Roe celebrations but the action will then move on to The Isle of Sheppey on Friday, 25th July 2009. Here Sky Sheppey 2009 will celebrate the first flight of J.C.T. Moore Brabazon, later Lord Brabazon, who flew a Voisin that he had purchased from France.
JANUARY 2007
Welcome to 2007, there is now less than 18 months before the first major celebrations of the Centenary Of British Aviation. The pace begins to hot up.
I would like to welcome Colin Dodds to the organising team. Colin has worked with Brooklands for a number of years after many years in the RAF where he flew Vulcans amongst other things. Colin will help organise events and will particularly look after the organisation of flying displays and liaising with aeronautical organisations.
We have been making good progress on most fronts and I will outline how we are doing on each one.
Mercedes-Benz give their support
Great news is that we have had support pledged for the entire Centenary of British Aviation by Mercedes-Benz. For those of you who don't know Mercedes-Benz has committed many millions of pounds to creating the Mercedes-Benz World experience at Brooklands. Find it at www.mercedes-benzworld.co.uk. This is a state of the art facility where new owners will collect their cars and are able to take part in a number of experiences ranging from test drives, off road courses, servicing and showrooms as well as virtual reality experiences and museum exhibits. The building occupies the centre of what used to be the Brooklands circuit and has strong links with the Museum which has benefited hugely from the company's involvement. In 2007 they will be supporting the celebrations of the Centenary of Motoring at Brooklands and then we plan to do the same for aviation. I am very grateful to Peter O'Halloran Managing Director of the Mercedes-Benz World and Dermot Kelly Managing Director of Mercedes-Benz UK for their enthusiastic support.
We hope to have a number of other major names joining the celebrations in the next few months.
At the moment the plan is a series of events, most of which I have already highlighted in previous emails:
April 2007. Launch of Aero Model Competition for schools.
We plan to launch a Aero Model competition for Schools to celebrate the Centenary of the 1907 Daily Mail sponsored event organised by the Royal Aero Club. Recently we met with Air Chief Marshall Sir Michael Alcock of the British Model Flying Association, a subsidiary of the Royal Aero Club, who agreed in principle to adapt their existing annual event to celebrate the anniversary. We plan to launch the competition which will involve teams of students from Senior Schools and Colleges creating flying models, built around a standardised engine. The skill is to successfully navigate a figure of eight course and the winning team will be the one that can carry the maximum load. This is appropriate given the challenge faced by A. V. Roe in 1908 when he had to get an aircraft in the air carrying a pilot with a very small horsepower engine. The art was to achieve the lightest solution to any engineering problem he needed to overcome. The same principles therefore apply.
The press launch will, we hope, be held at the Alexandra Palace on or around Monday April 16th. We then plan to hold the finals during the weekend of June 6th-8th 2008. You can see their activities on www.aeromodeller.co.uk .
Aircraft construction.
Progress is being made on all our projects.
Avro Triplane. Our most advanced project is the Manchester Triplane Project led by Mike Taylor and his enthusiastic crew. In an earlier newsletter I wrote that they had had to depart from the Woodford Aerodrome after health and safety concerns about the condition of their shed. This, of course, was ironic, after the similar eviction of A.V.Roe at Brooklands shortly after his successful hops in June 1908. Such is progress. Luckily Nick Forder of the Museum of Science and Transport, Manchester, came to the rescue and now the team are comfortably ensconced as living exhibits in the museum, working in a room directly on view by members of the public.
Highlights of Mike Taylor's latest report are that the first two wings are complete, and the other wing and tail plane should be ready early in 2007. The fuselage is now to be made in one piece and a target weight of 376 lbs has been established for the whole aircraft.
Undercarriage testing has been completed satisfactorily, a bi-product of this is that we have established that an ordinary bicycle can support about ten people...
The propeller will be made out of poplar wood and testing of a variety of formats will start shortly. A computer model of the Triplane is being developed which will help simplify the stressing of the aircraft.
Avroplane. Steven Green explains that much time has been spent on design work and clearing an area at Brooklands to begin construction of the Avroplane. Work has now begun on the jigs for wing construction and the manufacture of the large number of bracing items required. Recently the team have sourced an engine that will be suitable and complies with civil aviation requirements. The aim is complete construction by July 2007.
Other aircraft. Bobby has commissioned a replica flying model of the Roe 1 Biplane from David Clay an experienced aero modeller, while I rashly bought Martin an unfinished 11ft wingspan Avro Lancaster on eBay for Christmas which we hope will join the celebrations.
EVENTS
June 8th 2008. Brooklands. Anniversary of A.V.Roe's first flight.
The celebration will be hosted by Brooklands Museum and Mercedes-Benz on the weekend of June 7th and 8th. The dinner will take place on the Saturday evening. We hope to be able to reserve tables for those of you who wish to come. Numbers will be limited so the sooner I can have a list of those who will wish to attend the dinner the better. At this time I have no idea of the cost of tickets but suspect they will be somewhere between £100 and £150 each. Please contact me by email and let me know how many you might require. I will then organise the necessary number of tables.
July 20th 2008. Farnborough International Air Show.
Nothing new to report except to confirm the dates which are 14th to 20th July 2008. I would suggest that friends and family attend on Sunday 20th July when the full public display will be taking place.
13th July 2009. Lea Valley.
Various site visits have taken place and support for the event has been pledged by both British Rail who own the railway arches and the Lea Valley Authority who own the surrounding land. Another date for your diary.
22nd and 23rd August 2009. Duxford.
We have the enthusiastic support of Richard Ashton, Director of the Imperial War Museum, Duxford and our celebrations will culminate with a dinner in the new hanger surrounded by aircraft including a Lancaster, Vulcan and Avro Anson amongst others.
Website.
For those who haven't seen it we have a fledgling website www.britishaviation100.com where you will found some previously unpublished photographs of A. V. Roe and his family provided by Harry Stopes Roe and Gwyneth Verdon-Roe. You will also find some links to video clips of A.V. Roe.
Best wishes,
Dear all
I have found some pretty amazing footage of A V at Rowlands Castle. It
shows him in his study, then ridding his FF motorbike and cycling
backwards.
Aunt Tishy looks on disinterestedly... amazing to think she spent the
next 1/2 century living there and that the house is still as it was,
boarded up and completely overgrown...
Regards,
Bobby Verdon-Roe
Go to http://www.britishpathe.com/
And search for: Verdon-Roe
Yesterday Bobby Verdon-Roe and I visited BAE Systems Woodford and met the team headed up by Michael Taylor who we have commissioned to build the Avro Triplane replica. They are a very enthusiastic and knowledgeable team who will, I am sure, do a tremendous job. They are currently building an Avro type G replica, the first enclosed aircraft in the world and have already successfully flown a quarter scale replica which is a good way of learning how wing warping will work on the full scale replica. Incidentally, anyone travelling near Woodford near Manchester should drop in and ask to see the Heritage museum which has an extensive display of A. V. Roe and Avro memorabilia – well worth seeing.
Our major concern is to find any original drawings or plans of the Triplane or other early Roe planes, so can I ask anyone to let us know if they might have something relevant. We also need to source a JAP V Twin engine of that era (or replica). Any ideas or contacts also welcome.
The replica will star at the Lea Valley event in July 2009 which we hope to put on in association with the Lea Valley Experience to coincide with the opening of their museum. Lea Valley has obviously hit the headlines with the winning of the Olympics so we hope this will considerably raise the profile of the event. The plan is to then loan the Triplane as a star exhibit to the museum. If complete by 2008 it will also serve as an attraction at the Brooklands event amongst others.
We now have two definite events; the Brooklands Summer Party on 8th June 2008 and the Lea Valley event sometime over the weekend of July 10th 2009. We would like the Lea Valley event to have an educational angle which may demand it occurs on a Friday or Monday. In addition the Museum of Science & Industry in Manchester is refurbishing their aviation hall and they hope to have a grand reopening to coincide with the celebrations. Discussions also continue with Farnborough and Shuttleworth.
We hope that we will shortly agree to make a TV documentary film with Ventura Productions with Dennis Adams as Producer. Dennis has been producer of both Top Gear and Gardener's World and has produced the documentary series called Reach for the Skies. The theme would be the creation of the Triplane and using it as a backdrop to the key moments and achievements in A. V. Roe's life. The programme would be produced in High Definition TV format which will give it export potential particularly in Japan and US. On the book side Peter Clegg is making good progress with his book which uses extensive unpublished material from A. V. Roe's personal archive as well as the memoirs of Humphrey V. Roe. I have already put out a request to the family for any memorabilia and photos that might exist and be useful and have had a number of replies, so thank you for these - but don't stop looking...
Dan Ellis has started constructing the website having been on a crash course in how to build and design websites.
Thank you for your continued interest,
Best wishes
Eric Verdon-Roe
Dear Family, I hope to send you all an update on progress on a number of fronts later in August. However, I have been working with Peter Clegg who is writing a book about A. V. Roe which we hope to have published before June 2008.
I would appreciate it if you could inform you of any material you may have that could help in this endeavour. We have much material about the company at a great deal of photographs of Alliott and Avro aircraft. However, we are seeking more personal family photographs of Alliott and the family, particularly the other family directors of A. V. Roe and Co; Humphrey, Everard, Spencer and their parents Edwin and Annie Sophia.
Copies of any photos, letters, personal correspondence and diaries would be wonderful, but to avoid duplication I suggest that you let me know what you have before going to any trouble. I will ensure that anything is returned to you intact after we have copied it.
Very best wishes,
Eric
Progress report May 2005.
Firstly, thank you all for expressing your support for the project. There is certainly no shortage of enthusiasm to celebrate the birth of British aviation. I have discovered that there are a number of projects already under way and some good ideas bouncing around. The art will be to bring these to fruition and co-ordinate them all.
In no particular order:
Lea Valley Museum of Transport. Lindsay Collier is Project Chief Executive of the Lea Valley Experience www.leavalleyexperience.co.uk and is hoping to expand the current building which houses The Pump House and the National Railway Museum Exhibits.
This is planned to also include displays celebrating the achievements of A. V. Roe (1909 flights) de Havilland (Hatfield) and Colin Chapman (first Lotus factory) amongst others. A lottery grant application has been made and a key exhibit will be a replica of the Bull's Eye Triplane which he is hoping to have built by the Avro Heritage Group at Woodford.
There are plans for a celebration and Avro flying display in 1909 and a refurbishment of the railway arches which Alliott used where the current blue plaque is erected. I have given permission for the display hall to be called the A. V. Roe Hall.
Brooklands. Brooklands now hold most of the A. V. Roe archive and, of course, house the replica Roe 1 biplane. Martin and I have a meeting arranged with Julian Temple and Alan Winn later this week to discuss what celebrations might be/are planned in June 1908. Their current project is the reassembling of the prototype Concorde see www.brooklandsconcorde.com
Farnborough. Trevor Sidebottom Deputy Director General of the SBAC, the organisers of the Farnborough Airshow kindly offered to suggest to the committee that a tribute display to A. V. Roe be included at the 2008 event. The show is clearly focussed on the future and is principally a trade event but it is hoped that this is such a significant anniversary that an exception might be made, especially during the public days at the weekend. The display might celebrate other pioneers and S. F. Cody in particular, whose flying was based at Farnborough. I have just been informed by Trevor that there is enthusiasm for this idea and will be meeting him shortly to take this on.
Sir Charles Masefield of BAE Systems has expressed his enthusiasm for the project and will, I hope, be instrumental in mobilising the support that will be needed from the BAE Systems. I hope to meet with him in June.
The Avro Heritage Group is a team of retired Avro employees headed by Michael Taylor. They restored an Avro Anson to flying condition which is now based at the Shuttleworth Collection. They have now embarked on an ambitious programme of building a flying version of the Avro Type G. This was the enclosed biplane that was used in the military trials in 1912 and in which the Avro test pilot S. V. Sippe was the first person to ever recover from a spin (accidentally!). This is destined for the Manchester Hall of Aviation. They also plan to build a replica of the 1910 Avro Type F, the enclosed monoplane which holds the record as the first enclosed aircraft to fly. They also hope to now build the 1909 Bull's Eye Triplane for the Lea Valley Experience, though they will have to source a suitable JAP engine. They also need to source 28" bicycle wheels and forks which are rare (normal ones are 26"). If anyone knows where we might source these please let me know.
Brownsfield Mills. Harry Stopes Roe is researching the Manchester heritage of the early factory. Brownsfield Mills is grade 1 listed and a major development is planned. It is important that a good photographic record is made before the redevelopment starts.
Static/Flying Aircraft. We may therefore have the following aircraft available for 2008/2009 celebrations in various locations:
Roe 1
Bull's Eye Triplane Triplane Mk 1V (Science Museum)
Avro Type F (Enclosed monoplane)
Avro Type G (Enclosed biplane)
Avro 504 (We need 3 to recreate the Zeppelin shed bombing raid in Friedrichshafen by Sippe, Briggs and Babbington)
Avro Anson (two possible)
Avro Lancaster (two possible: Battle of Britain memorial flight and Canadian Lancaster which may fly to Britain to join the V.E. Day celebrations)
Avro Shackleton
Avro Vulcan (Lottery funded restoration of the Shuttleworth Vulcan called the 'Vulcan to the Sky" appeal).
I have had some conversations with Andy Wilman, the producer of Top Gear and the other Jeremy Clarkson programmes, and hope to meet him soon. I am hoping that a TV programme could become a centre piece of the 2008 celebrations. However, any contacts which may
Chris Williams has visited various museums and facilities once occupied by Avro Canada, as well as the location where A. V. Roe lived and worked near Vancouver when a teenager. I hope that we can generate considerable interest from the Canadian enthusiasts. There are rumours of the Canadian Lancaster coming to Europe for the celebrations and there are great stories to be told about the Avro Arrow Jetliner and Avro Car which was, in fact, a flying saucer.
June Alexander nee Verdon-Roe, daughter of A. V. Roe, has agreed to be Patron of the A. V. Roe Centenary Committee.
I would like to make contact with descendants of other famous flyers. We have leads for the Cody and Cayley families. Any other contacts gratefully received. We also need to make contacts with Saunders Roe.
Dan Ellis has kindly offered to build our Website (despite having no previous experience!). I have acquired www.verdon-roe.co.uk and I hope to build a core site off which each branch of the family will be able to load their family details and pictures etc. I also expect to link an A. V. Roe Centenary site to this.
Chris Perfect has also generously agreed to design letter headings etc. for the anniversary.
I hope to see some of you at Bridget's party in June,
Best wishes to all of you,
Eric Verdon-Roe