Edinburgh Flying Circus venues
EDINBURGH FLYING CIRCUS venues: Davidson's Mains area - 1932 to 1936
For some reason which I certainly do not understand, the area around Davidson's Mains which is roughly 4nm north-west of Edinburgh city centre, was selected mainly by Sir Alan Cobham, as being ideal for his Edinburgh displays. It appears that three sites were used by the Cobham tours between 1932 and 1935. These being: SILVERKNOWES, BROOMHOUSE FARM and SIGHTHILL.
Note: I have provided the Google Earth © area view, but the local area map and all the other maps, pictures and newspaper articles were very kindly provided by Mike Holder, who is of course a great friend of this 'Guide' and what a great job he has done for our benefit.
THE VENUES
This list might not be complete? Advice will be welcomed of course. But as far as Mike and I can see so far, the venues in date order were:
SILVERKNOWES: 10th to 11th September 1932: Sir Alan Cobham's Tour
BROOMHOUSE FARM: 1st October 1932: Sir Alan Cobham's Tour
Note: It appears that this second visit to the area was to compensate for the first visit in September being pretty much washed out by very poor weather.
SILVERKNOWES: 22nd to 23rd July 1933: Sir Alan Cobham's No.2 Tour
SILVERKNOWES: Possibly the venue used by the British Hospitals Air Pageant on the 18th September 1933?
SILVERKNOWES or SIGHTHILL? The venue given for the Sir Alan Cobham display tour on the 6th May 1934 is given as Davidson's Mains. It might of course have been BROOMHOUSE FARM but is this unlikely?
SIGHTHILL: 24th July 1935 for Sir Alan Cobham's No.2 Tour
SIGHTHILL: 22nd August 1936 for the British Empire Air Display tour
A MIKE HOLDER GALLERY
SILVERKNOWES
Note: The newspaper article was from the Edinburgh Evening News published on September 12th 1932.
BUT - NOT JUST A 'FLYING CIRCUS' VENUE
Note: Mike Holder also found this this article published in The Scotsman on the 18th April 1932 which clearly shows that SILVERKNOWES was a venue for other events such as gliding and parachuting events. But not it appears, an established aerodrome.
BROOMHOUSE FARM (Aka also spelt as BROOM HOUSE)
Note: It would appear that this location was only used by the Sir Alan Cobham tour on the 1st October 1932. But, why wasn't SILVERKNOWES available?
SOMETHING TO REMEMBER
It appears that it is not often realised that all of the venues used by these touring displays, which invariably involved passenger carrying for 'joy rides' had to be officially licensed 'aerodromes' even if used for just one day. In the early days a couple of men from the Ministry would turn up in advance and make a survey. They would drive across the field in their car and determine if it was smooth enough. They would also specify the landing runs and sometimes place performance limitations on certain types of aircraft..
Later, when it was realised that the more experienced and reponsible operators knew very well what was required, they could submit their own applications for a license to operate the venue. It seems that some of the smaller operators decided that they would sometimes ignore these requirements and they did get caught and fined from time to time.
SIGHTHILL FARM
THE COBHAM TOURS LOGISTICS
Although touring operators, such as the Berkshire Aviation Company (1919 to 1922) and The Cornwall Aviation Company (1924 to 1932), had been operating for many years, the heyday of the 'Flying Circus' era was from 1931 to 1936. When Cobham came on the scene in 1932 he changed everything - the first tour visiting 174 venues between the 12th April to the 16th October. Indeed, Cobham who was a renowned workaholic, planned a non-stop schedule for every day in between.
He then shipped nearly everything out to South Africa for a winter season, starting on the 23rd November to the 17th February - although he did allow his team to have Xmas day off!
Sadly perhaps, although by far the leading exponent of the main 'Flying Circus' era, he detested the term - but has gone down in history forever with his name associated with it - history can be very cruel indeed.
The 1933 Tour was split into two tours. The No.1 Tour started on the 14th April at DAGENHAM in ESSEX, and the No.2 Tour started at SOUTHEND, also in ESSEX. The No.1 Tour was planned to visit 116 venues, ending on the 8th October in STAINES, MIDDLESEX. The No.2 Tour was planned for 151 venues ending at MAYLANDS AERODROME, Romford in ESSEX, also on the 8th October. The difference in venues being that the No.1 Tour had more two-day events in the schedule. The 1934 Tour was not split, and was planned for 159 venues, whereas the final Tour in 1935 split into two from the 1st July, in all planned for 244 venues.
Can you even imagine planning the logistics? To service each venue a fleet of vehicles were employed, usually having to 'leap-frog' over each other. Some were highly specialised, such as the petrol tanker and public-address van complete with three large speakers, and the engineers trucks equipped as mobile workshops. Generally, especially for the mostly one-day events, a team would arrive the day before to start setting up. The crews, including the pilots, mostly slept in tents, and in addition fencing was put up. They even had dedicated 'Arrow men' who would put up signs showing the way to the venue during the night.
Needless to say, well in advance, publicity posters had to be spread around, adverts placed with local newspapers, and of course - to begin with - sites had to be found and contractual arrangements made with the farmer/land owner for use of the field. It seems incredible, but, by and large, this all worked out to plan.
PUBLICITY AND THE PRESS
Here are four examples found by Mike Holder in The Scotsman. We need to remember that in those days the press were incredibly important to spreading news around. Both for advertising and getting publicity. Radio broadcasts had only started in the U.K. in 1922 and the BBC were granted a monopoly in 1927. In other words the only way to get 'exposure' of events such as flying displays, was via the press.
Without any doubt whatsover, without the press publishing adverts and articles, in newspapers and magazines, compiling a 'Guide' such as this, would be at times either very difficult if not impossible.
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