Famine Point
Note: This map only gives a rough location within the UK. Attempts to find the exact location of FAMINE POINT have failed so far. If anybody can kindly offer advice, this will be most welcome.
FAMINE POINT: Early experimental flying site
Operated by: Isaac Henry Storey and John George Aulsebrook Kitchen, later Cedric Lee and George Tilghman Richards, mainly in 1911
Location: On Middleton Sands roughly SSE of Heysham
Period of operation: 1910 to 1911
NOTES: A hangar was built here to house an ‘annular-winged’, (circular wing layout), biplane fitted with a 50hp Gnome engine. Virtually nothing else is known, and it would seem it didn’t actually fly. At the end of 1910 the aircraft was sold to Cedric Lee who engaged Mr Richards to help develop the design, Mr Kitchen was retained too. It does seem this aircraft never became airborne and was eventually destroyed during a gale on Nov 5th 1911 when the hangar collapsed. So why include this site here? In a Guide to flying sites?
The reason is that in those very early days of powered aviation using fixed wing aircraft designs the difference between trundling along the ground and actually taking-off often depended on the tiniest of factors, perhaps even one factor being present like a soft breath of wind.
ANOTHER ATTEMPT
The next year they flew a similar design, photographed and filmed this time, albeit as a glider, from SELLET BANKS. (See seperate entry). This does slightly suggest the earlier design might have flown as in those days given a bit more development. Several aircraft designs that barely flew or ‘hopped’ were capable of being quite successful gliders. It was often the added engine weight, lack of enough power and an inefficient propeller design that prevented powered flight using these rudimentary airframes. The general lack of engine reliability was a big issue too. Could this explain why these men resorted to flying their aircraft as a glider?
It is interesting I suppose, to reflect that in a perverse sort of way, aviation history has come full circle. Many modern advanced military designs can’t really be flown by pilots using basic stick and rudder skills either. They are so unstable only a sophisticated computer powered programme can control them!
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