Cardiff flying sites
Note: This map simply shows the position of Cardiff city centre within the UK.
CARDIFF: For CAERAU see the ELY RACECOURSE listing
CARDIFF see also CARDIFF CITY HALL
CARDIFF see also ELY RACECOURSE
CARDIFF see also HEATH PARK
CARDIFF see also MISKIN MANOR HOTEL
CARDIFF see also MYNACHDY FARM
CARDIFF see also PENGHAM MOOR
CARDIFF see also CARDIFF AIRPORT (RHOOSE)
CARDIFF see also SOPHIA GARDENS
CARDIFF see also TREMORTA FORESHORE HELIPORT
CARDIFF see also WENVOE AERODROME
CARDIFF: Balloon ascent site
Location: ?
Operated by: Stanley and Percival Spencer
Period of operation: 1894 only?
CARDIFF: Airship factory and also operational base
Location: East Moors (Possibly near Rumney?)
Period of operation: c1907 to 1910?
NOTES: It appears that Ernest T Willows, although only nineteen years old, both built and successfully flew a 11,000 cu ft airship in 1907. Powered by a 30hp JAP engine this airship seems to have been a ‘proper airship’ whereas, for example, the Spencer airship of 1902 was better described as a nominally powered balloon. See ALEXANDRA PALACE LONDON for an account of the French aeronaut Mnsr Gaudron building and flying probably the first practical airship in the UK.
See also FARNBOROUGH in HAMPSHIRE and BARROW-in-FURNESS CUMBRIA for accounts of the first ‘government built’ airships which really were abysmal failures. Establishing a tradition mostly of failure in airship design which the British pursued right up to the R.101 of course.
A BRITISH PIONEER
Ernest Willows is in fact probably the most important British airship pioneer because in July 1910 he flew his second airship non-stop from Cardiff to London in ten hours - some 140 miles, then the longest endurance flight by a British airship.
In C C Turner’s book Old Flying Days he relates an account of this flight given to him by Willows and in passing mentions that before setting off Willows had to make a repair to the airship, “…a rent being caused by a flint thrown at him by a (no doubt fully enfranchised) British citizen!” So perhaps instead of denigrating the louts and delinquents we have today, perhaps we should appreciate their efforts to keep such long held British traditions alive?
Whatever! To get back to Willows story: “I started about three minutes past eight p.m. from East Moors, Cardiff, where are the sheds in which I have been working for the past five years. I had to go a quarter of a mile or so towards the city to get to the seashore. I had decided to make the Somersetshire coast as near Clevedon as possible, and there I was to pick up a motor-car, in which my father was, the object being for the motor-car, with its headlights, to show me the route. Unfortunately, after going six or seven miles or so towards Bristol, the car had one of those periods of trouble which come to even the best of them, and I was left to make my way eastward alone.”
AN INCREDIBLE ADVENTURE
He goes on to say, (seeming to jump backwards in the telling), “There was an off-shore wind of eighteen or twenty miles, and after I had kept along the coast a little to find out that all was rightI headed across the Channel. I did the fourteen miles to the Somersetshire coast in thirty minutes. I did not arrange to have boats out, but I thought it better to wear a life-belt in case of accident. From Cardiff to Clevedon I kept the ship at a height of about 500 feet.
As a matter of fact, that was one of the best and most comfortable bits of the whole journey. The wind was a trifle gusty, and was, indeed, quite troublesome at times, making the ship pitch like a yacht in a tide race.” I do now love hearing these Ripping Yarns and trust you do to?
“During the night I had to steer by the lights of towns. At Reading my altitude was 2,800 feet. As morning broke I picked up Ursa Minor in the East, and keeping the Little Bear on my starboard, I was able to make a pretty consistent course. I should think I stopped my motor a dozen times to make enquiries as to the direction in which I was going, and at one time I got some useful information in reply from a gang of platelayers. Just before I got to the Palace, (My note: Alexandra Palaceor Crystal Palace I assume?), I threw out my grappling iron, but lost it in a tree.
After that I was comparatively helpless, but for my trailer. As I was passing south-east of Lee, (My note: Where I wonder was this?), it trailed across the roof of a contractor’s shed. This brought the watchman out. I asked him to catch hold of the rope and he did so.”
ANOTHER PIONEERING FLIGHT
His third airship ‘City of Cardiff’ made the first London to Paris flight by a British airship also in 1910.
This said, perhaps it might be both interesting and informative to see what was going on elsewhere regarding airships. The German airship airline DELAG (Deutsche Luftschiffahrts Aktiengesellscaft – German Airship Transport Corporation) had been formed on the 16th Nov 1909. By 1910 DELAG had an airline operating Zeppelin airships all over Germany on nigh on scheduled services. Some claim they never lost one or killed a passenger either! However, I have found an account saying their first Zeppelin airship, the Deutschland crashed in the Teutoburger forest on the 28th June 1910 – nine days after its maiden voyage. Perhaps on a non-revenue proving flight without passengers?
Be this as it may, by July 1914, when the German Empire started to mobilize for WW1 on the 30th July that year, DELAG had carried 34,028 passengers on 1,588 flights. Which puts the meagre British efforts into perspective.
CARDIFF: See serate entry for MYNACHDY FARM
NOTES: It appears that prior to WW1 the Watkins monoplane was built in Cardiff and it appears that it flew successfully.
CARDIFF: See seperate entry for SOPHIA GARDENS
The famous French aviator, Henri Salmet, arrived here on the 22nd May during his Daily Mail sponsored tour in 1912.
CARDIFF: Temporary Landing Ground
NOTES: Cardiff was the 67th venue for Sir Alan Cobham's 1929 Municipal Aerodrome Campaign, arriving here in September after performing at NEWPORT. The Tour started in May and ended in October with one hundred and seven venues visited. Mostly in England just two were in Wales, but eight were in Scotland.
The aircraft he used was the DH61 'Giant Moth' G-AAEV named 'Youth of Britain'. The punishing schedule he set himself seems astonishing today - see STOCTON-on-TEES for more details. Better still I can highly recommend reading his memiors in 'A Time To Fly'.
As far as I can make out, PENGHAM MOORS was not used until 1932? If anybody can kindly offer advice regarding the location of this venue in 1929, this will be much appreciated.
CARDIFF: Horse racecourse and temporary civil aerodrome
Note: See the ELY RACECOURSE listing for much more information
Operated by: North British Aviation Co
Location: Ely, roughly 2.5nm ENE of the city centre
Period of operation: 27th April to 3rd May 1931 only?
NOTES: Venue during their ‘Tour of Britain’.
Did Sir Alan Cobham’s National Aviation Day UK Display Tour also use this site as a venue on the 1st and 2nd of June 1932 when they performed at Cardiff? The same question applies to the venue used on the 25th September when Cobham’s 1934 Tour displayed in/near Cardiff. Where did this take place?
Did they also use WENVOE?
CARDIFF: Military aerodrome
Military user: RAF 53 Wing Maintenance Command
Activities: Packing Depot
Location: Western outskirts of Cardiff, 2.5mls from Cardiff GWR station
Period of operation: 1931 to 1954
Runway: 05/23 878x23 hard
NOTES: Could it be that some aircraft were flown in to be dis-assembled and crated for export? Or was the runway simply for use by communications aircraft?
CARDIFF: Military airstrip?
Military user: US First Army ‘VII’ Corps 90th Infantry Division Artillery
Location: Was a known aerodrome used or was a new site used?
Period of operation: 1944/5 only?
NOTES: It appears that three Piper L-4 Grasshoppers and one Stinson L-5 Sentinel were based here.
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