Edlington
Note: This map only shows the position of Edlington within the UK.
EDLINGTON: Very temporary airfield
Location: Public football/playing field in village, 4nm SW of Doncaster town centre
Period of operation: Occassionally or just once during 1930s…. only?
I have also heard that a 'joy-ride' operation, with a single aeroplane, also visited Edlington in the 1950s.
If anybody can kindly offer more advice and information, this will be most welcome.
NOTES: There are scores of records regarding itinerent ‘cowboy’ joy ride operators with a single aeroplane touring around in the 1920s and 30s…presumably conducting their business well outside the law initially? It appears that one such visited here, but how did they work the system? Did they simply just land on a convenient spot, (a crowd could almost always be guaranteed to quickly gather in those days), and make a few flights to earn their keep.
But where did they go at night, where did they eat and sleep? Presumably they maintained their aircraft themselves? Getting really down to basics, what toilet arrangements did they have? Looked at by today’s standards it would be utterly impossible to imagine.
Would you go flying with such a person?
Expecting the answer to be, “No way”, the fact remains that you probably couldn’t find a safer pilot, then or today! Those people were actually invariably incredibly skilful pilots especially when, for example, making forced landings. And many were ex-WW1 air force pilots desperately keen to earn some kind of living from flying. Indeed, Sir Alan Cobham when he first started out with the Berkshire Aviation Company was not so far short of operating in this kind of environment.
BY CONTRAST
By comparison the so called ‘Flying Circus’ of the period were by and large highly professional affairs by the standards of the day. As said elsewhere no wonder Sir Alan Cobham objected so strenuously to the term ‘Flying Circus’. In the early days Air Ministry officials visited intended sites, licensed the ‘airfield’ even if only intended for use on one day, and often placed operational limitations etc upon them. In Cobham's case an operations office in London planned and took care of the logistics and so on.
History does of course have a strange way of coming around full circle and I suppose the people involved in any large-scale Circus or Fairground operation today could easily identify with all the ‘jumping through hoops’ and ‘red tape’ now required to hold an event, and just how similar these procedures would be compared to the ‘Flying Circus’ tours in the 1920s and 30s.
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