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CHAPTER III

Even greater things were in store for Harry in 1913, for although the British Duration Record was an achievement to be handed down to posterity, it pertained only to British aviation. His performance in the Round-Britain Seaplane Race, so generously promoted by Lord Northcliffe and the Daily Mail, as one of the milestones in the early progress of marine aircraft, will live in the world’s history unbounded by nationalities.

A friend who worked in the shops at Canbury Park Road, where he took part in the construction of the Round-Britain seaplane, well remembers with the observant eyes of a hero-worshipper seeing Harry make daily tours through the works in company with Messrs. Sopwith, Sigrist, and R. O. Cary, the general manager. Other than a sturdy physique and cheery countenance, Harry bore nothing to indicate that he was an aviator by profession. He was wholly without affectation and a favourite with everyone belonging to the Sopwith concern.

Sir Charles D. Rose, Bart., M.P., Chairman of the Royal Aero Club, handed to Harry on Tuesday, January 7th, 1913, a cheque for £500 in respect of the prize awarded in connection with the Michelin Competition. Of this sum, Harry received 25 per cent. as remuneration for his special services to the Sopwith concern. On the same day, too, Cody received his cheque for £600 in connection with the No. 2 Michelin Competition.

Mr. Sopwith himself was out testing a new tractor biplane on Friday, February 7th, 1913, at 7.20 a.m., carrying Harry as a passenger. To ride in the passenger’s seat of an aeroplane of new design is a task simple enough truly, but not too pleasant for an experienced pilot. This flight speaks volumes for the great confidence which Harry always had in his friend and benefactor. This new tractor-type machine was dismantled after the flight and sent to Olympia for the Aero Show, where it was purchased by the Admiralty. After the Show, Harry himself tested the machine at Brooklands, flying for 1¼ hours on March 1st preparatory to handing it over to the responsible naval authority, Lieut. Spencer Gray, who flew it to Hendon with a passenger.

The Sopwith-Wright machine was still in service, and Harry was flying it on the Saturday. On the Sunday, February 9th, he was third in a Quick-starting and Alighting Competition, during which he was lost to view above the clouds.

Harry also scored a “third” in the Speed Handicap at Brooklands on Easter Monday. Inasmuch as the spectators were left uninformed as to the result of the race, the event was a farce. Harry, on the Sopwith-Wright, was very severely handicapped, and had it not been that Barnwell passed the finishing-post on the wrong side, he would not have been “placed.”

The weather being particularly favourable, some very fine flying was seen at Brooklands on Sunday afternoon, March 29th; over a dozen machines being out. There were no races, but numerous exhibition and passenger flights were indulged in. Harry interested the spectators by practising “aerial leap-frog” on the Sopwith-Wright, a performance which caused much astonishment. With the propellers completely stopped, he made a well-judged landing from a considerable height.

During March, 1913, the first tests of the Sopwith “Bat Boat,” which had made its début at the Olympia Show, were carried out at Cowes. Sopwith, whose motor-boat experience stood him in good stead, first took the machine out, but although a speed of sixty miles per hour was attained, the machine would not leave the water. Harry had a shot at it, but with no better success. Sopwith, making another effort, rose a few feet, but the hull landed heavily and was damaged. Left out all night on the beach, the machine was almost destroyed by a gale, one report circulating to the effect that only the engine and propeller remained intact!

Harry was not hampered by any scruples with regard to trading on the Sabbath, for on Sunday, April 13th, 1913, he set out to play the rôle of aeroplane salesman, and incidentally to make his Hendon début. The specific purpose of his flight on the Sopwith-Wright from Brooklands to Hendon was to offer the machine for sale to the Grahame-White Company, whom he regarded as good potential purchasers, as they had recently sold two of their machines to the War Office and would require others to replace them in order to cope with increasing demands for exhibition and passenger flights at the London aerodrome. On the way there he had a forced landing at Wormwood Scrubbs, but was able to proceed and complete the whole journey in 40 minutes, inclusive of the delay. He terminated the flight by making several circuits of the aerodrome at Hendon, and subsequently made a number of other exhibition and passenger flights which demonstrated the wonderful handiness and airworthiness of the machine. His passengers during the afternoon included Manton and Gates, both well-known pilots of the Grahame-White Company. Passengers were greatly impressed by the stability of the machine and the strangeness of sitting on one side of the engine. Landing, too, was rather a new sensation, as the seats were so low in comparison with those of other types that to one on the point of touching the ground the landing chassis seemed to have fallen off!

On the following Sunday, at Hendon, Harry carried several more passengers, and at times there were as many as eight machines in flight simultaneously.

Harry tested the second Sopwith air-boat at Brooklands on Monday, May 25th. The machine, engined with a 100 h.p. Green, which was a development of the original “Bat Boat” mentioned above, was fitted with a temporary land chassis. One of the struts of this gave way on landing, resulting in damage to the left aileron. The original “Bat Boat” had warping, or flexing, wings.

Tuesday, May 6th, saw Harry testing a new Sopwith Tractor biplane engined with an 80 h.p. Gnome. This machine was a three-seater, and on the Wednesday he had two passengers up for half an hour above 1,000 feet. He flew the machine over to Farnborough on Friday, May 9th, where he carried out an official test, when a speed of 73·6 miles per hour was attained.

THE SOPWITH TABLOID, THE PROTOTYPE OF THE FIGHTING SCOUTS, DESIGNED BY HARRY, IN ITS MODIFIED FORM FOR LOOPING-THE-LOOP, AFTER HIS RETURN FROM AUSTRALIA.

[Facing p. 56.

On May 10th, 1913, the Saturday before Whitsun, with Harry in charge, the new 80 h.p. Gnome Sopwith Tractor biplane fully justified the big things that were expected of it, at Hendon, whither its reputation had travelled in advance. Harry flew over from Brooklands to take part in an Altitude Contest in competition with Verrier on a Maurice Farman, Robert Slack on a 50 h.p. Gnome Blériot, Brock on a 35 h.p. Deperdussin, and Hamel on an 80 h.p. Blériot. The machines left the ground at short intervals and were all soon out of sight, hidden by clouds. In making a single circuit of the aerodrome, the Sopwith machine climbed 2,000 feet. Hamel was first down after about 20 minutes, quickly followed at short intervals by Slack, Verrier, and Brock, in the order named. Harry, however, was nowhere in sight, and did not appear again until about forty minutes after he had started. As there was a time limit in the contest, the judges, having concluded that Harry had made a forced landing elsewhere, announced the following result:

1. Verrier		4,450 ft.
2. Brock		4,300 ft.
3. Slack		4,000 ft.

Hamel retired, disqualified by a faulty barograph, although he had ascended to somewhere above 7,000 feet. In the meantime Harry had reached an altitude of 7,450 feet in 15 minutes—a truly remarkable performance. At that height, having lost his bearings, he decided to land, which he did at Ponder’s End, a few miles east of Hendon, still keeping his engine running while he enquired of a passer-by his whereabouts. Having returned to the aerodrome and satisfied the judges that he had landed within the prescribed time limit, he was finally adjudicated winner of the contest. The particular machine was one of a series ordered by the Admiralty.

Immediately after this fine performance Harry competed in the Speed Handicap for the Shell prize of 100 guineas. The race was flown in heats, Harry being scratch man in the second heat and giving 55 seconds to Slack and 1 minute 57 seconds to Lewis Turner, who was flying a Caudron biplane. Turner won the heat by 17⅖th seconds, and Harry came in last, three minutes behind Slack. His failure may be attributed to bad handicapping, which could hardly be avoided in the case of almost the first public appearance of a new machine with a genuine reputation preceded most probably by an exaggerated one. After witnessing the final, won by Turner, Harry left for Brooklands, where, on Whit-Sunday, he carried several passengers and also tested the engine of the Sopwith hydro-aeroplane.

On Whit-Monday, May 12th, 1913, at Brooklands, Harry was one of three starters in the Whitsun Cross-Country Aeroplane Handicap. Rain fell during the race. Alcock was first away on Ducrocq’s Henry Farman, but had to abandon the race almost immediately owing to the strong wind nearly blowing his relatively slow machine backwards. Harry was next away on the Tractor, with a start of 76 seconds from Gordon Bell, who flew the 120 h.p. Martin-Handasyde monoplane. Harry made a quicker start than Gordon Bell, who sacrificed several seconds when the starter’s flag fell. At the first turning-point Bell had picked up 36 seconds over Harry, but lost several through turning on an unnecessarily big radius. At the second turn he gained another 10 seconds, but also lost owing to the same cause. Harry won a fine race by 39 seconds. This triumph of the biplane over the monoplane possessed some significance, and seemed to indicate that the greater wing surface of Harry’s machine enabled it to be “banked” more steeply and consequently brought round on a shorter radius when turning.

Harry made several circuits of the aerodrome at 500 feet, while testing the new Sopwith hydro-aeroplane, on the Saturday after Whitsun, May 17th, 1913, at Brooklands, preparatory to sea tests to be made at Cowes. On the Sunday, Lieut. Spencer Gray tested the Sopwith Tractor biplane, and all present were astonished by its remarkable climbing properties. In a wind of 35 m.p.h., Harry made several solo and passenger flights.

Sopwith and Harry were at Cowes during the following week, ending May 24th, testing the new hydro-aeroplane, which exceeded all expectations. Two more machines were approaching completion at the works, ready to be despatched to Brooklands for test.

It was proposed that on Saturday afternoon, May 31st, Hamel, Gordon Bell, Harry, and other well-known pilots should attempt a British Altitude Record, and also possibly a World’s Record. Hamel would fly an 80 h.p. Borel monoplane, Gordon Bell the 120 h.p. Martin-Handasyde monoplane, and Harry the 80 h.p. Gnome Sopwith Tractor biplane. The Brooklands Automobile Racing Club offered a prize of £50 to anyone breaking the existing record of 10,650 feet, which stood to the credit of G. de Havilland.

The following extract from the official notices to members of the Royal Aero Club, issued under date June 7th, 1913, tells its own story:

“British Height Record.—The report of the flight made by Mr. H. G. Hawker at Brooklands on May 31st, 1913, together with barograph charts, were considered, and it was decided to accept the height accomplished—viz., 11,450 feet—as a British height record. The aircraft used on the occasion was a Sopwith Tractor biplane, fitted with an 80 h.p. Gnome.”

It is interesting to note that de Havilland’s record flight had been made with a passenger, and that it still stood as the record flight for pilot and one passenger.

Earlier in the day, before essaying to break the height record, Harry made the initial tests of another Sopwith Tractor biplane, which proved equal to the prototype. Lieut. Spencer Gray also tested the machine for the Admiralty. When Harry set out on his record-breaking flight the wind had dropped and the sky was clear. Weather conditions were ideal, and the prevailing question was not “Will he break the record?” but “By how much will he break it?” The machine used was the one which had made the memorable ascent of 7,500 feet in 15 minutes, at Hendon, on the Saturday before Whitsun, and was in view of the onlookers throughout the whole flight.

The climb to 11,450 feet, which beat the existing record by 950 feet, occupied 45 minutes, and the gliding descent was accomplished in a fifth of that time. Harry would have been able to go higher had he not experienced difficulty in maintaining a good mixture, a circumstance which culminated in the carburetter freezing and rendered a descent imperative. On landing he was received with hearty acclamation and congratulations. With the winning of the previous altitude contest at Hendon and the Whit-Monday handicap at Brooklands, this flight constituted the third important success of the particular machine used, and Mr. Sopwith was congratulated on having such a first-class pilot as Harry Hawker to demonstrate the wonderful and surprising capabilities of the new Sopwith products.

Harry’s height record of May 31st inspired “The Dreamer” to contribute to Flight the following, published on June 14th:

“Bravo, Hawker!

“I wish I could have been at Brooklands to have seen your smiling face when you came down from your lofty position. Your face always does me good when I gaze upon it. I suppose you sometimes feel a bit glum, like the rest of us, but I have never happened to be there to see it; and this time I am sure it would have acted as a tonic, as I am just a bit run down at the moment.

“That you have got a machine that can climb, and that you know how to handle it, I know. I only wish Brooklands were more get-at-able so that I could see more of you and the others there....”

At the week-end aviation meetings at Brooklands free passenger flights were generally balloted for by the spectators, and Harry frequently carried the successful participants.

Fresh from his triumph, Harry was out carrying passengers as usual on Sunday, June 1st. Once, while he was carrying two passengers, Gordon Bell was also out flying solo on an identically similar Sopwith Tractor, thereby enabling comparisons to be made. The general view was that the machine appeared to climb as well with the passengers as without them. On descending, Harry announced his intention of making attempts on the altitude records for one, two, and three passengers.

In a wind blowing at about 30 miles per hour, Harry was flying the two Sopwith Tractor biplanes at Brooklands on Sunday, June 8th. Among the several passengers whom he carried, up to 2,000 feet or more, was his friend Commander Samson, R.N.

On the Monday, Harry flew to the Isle of Wight and back, with a Mr. Boger as passenger. The outward and return journeys occupied 55 minutes and 50 minutes respectively, and a height of 5,000 feet was maintained.