Fairmuir Recreation Ground
FAIRMUIR RECREATION GROUND: Temporary aerodrome
Operated by: Mr Sydney Pickles
Location: Roughly 1.5nm N of Dundee City Centre
Period of operation: 28th June 1913
A MICHAEL T HOLDER GALLERY
We have Mike Holder, a great friend of this 'Guide', to thank for both discovering this location and providing the maps, photos and press articles.
Note: The Notice was published in the Dundee Courier on the 21st June 1913. The photo was published in the Daily Mirror on the 1st July 1913.
A FULL EXPLANATION
This article in four parts was published in the Dundee Courier on the 30th June 1913. In researching this 'Guide' for UK flying sites, I must readily admit that some are rather marginal - in terms of actual flying - which of course in this case was very brief. Even so, as the Notice above indicates, this venue had been offered for use for an exhibition of flying, as displays were usually called in those days.
This last article was published in the Aberdeen Press and Journal on the 30th June 1913. The local area view is from my Google Earth © derived database.
NOTES: Here again in researching this 'Guide' sometimes the stories don't quite match up. Mr Sydney Pickles gained his Royal Aero Club Certificate, No.263, on the 30th July 1912. He is on record for having been a test pilot for Short Brothers and the Blackburn Aeroplane Company, plus the Fairey Aviation Company, although the latter was formed in 1915. He became a Flt. Lt. in the Royal Navy in 1914.
Yet here we have him in mid 1913 flying a Blériot, possibly a XIV type as it was a two-seater as the photograph above shows. He is known to have visited other venues during this period, but, was he being sponsored or just possibly (?) undertaking his own project. It seems a case of just bad luck that his engine was failing on his first flight here, or, were his mechanics lacking? The engines fitted to early Blériot types, even by 1912, had earned a reputation for being very reliable.
Indeed, Henri Salmet had undertaken a Tour of much of the UK in 1912, sponsored by the Daily Mail, in which he flew all of the sectors. Then again, which I suppose we should perhaps consider, it that Salmet was French and therefore I expect his mechanics were French too? Plus, the engine was a French design manufactured in France. So, I expect they had learnt a few tricks of the trade.
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