Taplow
Note: This map only shows the position of Taplow within the UK. If anybody can kindly offer advice regarding where Salmet landed, this will be much appreciated.
TAPLOW: Temporary landing site
Note: These four items have been very kindly provided by Mike Holder, a great friend of this 'Guide'.
Note: The newspaper article was published in the Belfast News Letter on the 17th May 1912
Mike Holder has undertaken a detailed study of this Tour by Salmet, and the full schedule can be found in my article: "The 1912 tour by Henri Salmet".
Location: Roughly 2nm WNW of Slough town centre
NOTES: A newspaper report dated the 16th May 1912 (?) states that Henri Salmet took-off from WORMWOOD SCRUBS at 6.10pm to commence his tour of England sponsored by the Daily Mail after being delayed by high winds for at least twenty-four hours. It appears he made READING by 8pm after making a stop in TAPLOW.
This account raises so many questions, not least of course – why TAPLOW of all places? Aerial navigation techniques were in their infancy and for many years after following line features such as a railway was the preferred option, still the case today for many VFR flights although today a motorway might well be a better option. Mind you, since making this comment many years ago in my notes, the emergence of GPS now renders the following of line features pretty much redundant.
Did he get lost by this stage in the flight? Which seems very unlikely as the Great Western Railway leads directly to Reading and passes just south of his starting point as WORMWOOD SCRUBBS.
Was he simply needing to reassess his position with regard to reaching Reading? Or in need of fuel perhaps? Or - just needing to rest. Or - a combination of all three? Those early aeroplanes could not be trimmed on flight, and if not rigged perfectly, which was virtually impossible as they were quite flexible structures, the in-flight loads could be quite physically demanding.
In 2013 I discovered that the remit Henri Salmet had agreed to with the Daily Mail was to extend, by visiting as many places as possible, awareness of the value of the powered aircraft. In the edition of Flight dated May 18 1912 this ‘mission statement’ was published: “Once more, with their characteristic enthusiasm in matters aviatic, the Daily Mail have come forward with a new idea to bring home to the public the enormous importance of the aeroplane. It is not a big cash prize that has been offered this time for the one to first succeed in fulfilling certain conditions – what they are going to do, virtually, is to send one or more aeroplanes in charge of experienced pilots round the whole of Britain. Thus not merely a small percentage, but nearly the whole population of England and Wales will be able to see and judge the value of the aeroplane as it stands at the present day.”
Is it not very interesting to see that, in the opinion of this journalist in 1912, the “whole of Britain” did not include Scotland and Ireland!
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