Rhos-on-Sea flying sites
Note: This map gives the position of the present day golf club at Rhos-on-Sea, which I presume is on the same site as the first listing below?
RHOS-on-SEA: Temporary landing site later temporary aerodrome
Operated by: It can hardly be said that Robert Loraine ‘operated’ this site when he chose to land there unannounced in August 1910, but, it seems reasonably certain this is the same site used by the British Hospitals Air Pageant UK tour?
Location: On the golf course
Period of operation: 10th August 1910, July 1911 and later August 1933?
NOTES:
In 2010 I found an entry in C C Turner’s Old Flying Days published in around 1927 concerning this flight. It was only the first stage in a series of three flights starting from BLACKPOOL which took him here first, (C C lists it as Llandudno), then to ANGELSEY and finally to Ireland where he crashed landed in the sea near to the beach at Howth Head, just ENE of Dublin . At that period in time it was an extraordinarily brave venture, conducted entirely on his own with a view to “making an aerial tour of the Country.”
It appears that Robert Loraine, (a well known actor who’d gained his pilot’s certificate the previous year), took it upon himself to take-off at 06.30 on Wednesday 10th August 1910 from Blackpool, (where he’d been participating in a flying meeting), to fly along the north Wales coast and chose to land on the golf course at Rhos-on-Sea after being airborne for ninety minutes. The effect locally is hard to imagine today. The arrival at even such an early hour immediately attracted hundreds of visitors mainly holiday makers.
The astute manager of the Llandudno and Colwyn Bay Electric Railway abandoned his summer time-table and pressed into use his reserve tramcars to convey the inquisitive. Thousands of people arrived at the golf course that day in the hope of just seeing the flying machine and presumably the pilot too.
ANOTHER VENUE
In July 1911 a flying meeting was held in this area, (possibly on the beach?), but it has been described as being a fiasco.
RHOS-on-SEA: Forced landing site
NOTES: As pointed out elsewhere in this 'Guide', which has given me cause to despair over the years; it sometimes appears that nearly every second or third field in Britain has some sort of aviation connection. And, perhaps needless to say, much of this can be attributed to the early military years of our aviation history especially. Here is just one example of a few I’ve selected around the UK to illustrate this aspect.
On Monday the 20th January 1922 a flight of eight Bristol F.2B Fighters belonging to 4 Sqdn based at Baldonnel on the SW outskirts of Dublin left to fly to RAF SEALAND. Obviously weather forecasting was still in its infancy, (has it ever grown up?), and gale force winds were encountered as they neared Anglesey resulting in the formation, sensibly I suppose, breaking apart.
One of the aircraft J6698 piloted by, (can you believe it?), F/Lt Pratt developed engine problems dictating a forced landing which was made on Bryn Euryn Farm near Rhos-on-Sea. Five days later a salvage crew from SHOTWICK arrived to dismantle the aircraft and it appears, (this is the bit I like), they were assisted in the task by mechanics from Braid Bros 'Midland Garage' in Colwyn Bay.
However, there is another aspect to this story which caught my eye, assuming it is truthfully reported of course, which I believe it was. It seems that many others on this ill-fated flight made forced landings - including one in south Yorkshire! Now then why did this pilot decide (?) to fly so far? Navigation was of course never a strong point of RAF pilots and aircrew. In fact many it would seem were nigh on useless up to and including WW2 if not beyond. But surely ending up in south Yorkshire seems unforgivable?
Unless of course the pilot deliberately decided to ‘ride out’ the high winds until they abated somewhat giving himself a better chance of landing without damage to his machine and himself? Which at face value seems reasonable enough, except that this entailed him flying across the Peak District.
MIGHT I INDULGE YOU WITH A TALE?
The inability of weather forecasters to predict very strong winds suddenly arising still applied in mor recent times, and I suspect it applies today. In the summer of 2003 for example I was in a Cessna 172 flying VFR, using very basic time and heading navigation techniques which seemed entirely appropriate according to the benign en route weather ‘actuals’ and forecasts available, with another pilot flying from Luxembourg International airport back to UK.
I was supposedly navigating and ‘working the radio’ rather than flying when it gradually became obvious our position was way off-line. Although neither of us were officially rated to use such equipment we dialled up a VOR and using the DME, we quickly discovered we’d encountered 60mph winds about twenty degrees off our original heading. In other words, although it had largely a headwind component it also caused us to drift northwards at a quite alarming rate.
The problem being that much of northern France, and especially so on our chosen route, is bereft of decent navigation waypoints. In fact I only realised how much we had been drifting north when, in the distance I saw the fairly new Strépy-Thieu canal boat lift, a massive structure - which is in southern Belgium! Having flown in this area with a Belgian instructor, I had no problem recognising it.
As you might well imagine winds of this strength plays merry hell with any navigation plan but we more or less managed to cope and fortunately they’d died down quite a bit when we eventually reached LYDD.
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