Trevose Golf Links
TREVOSE GOLF LINKS: Temporary Landing Ground
Note: Both of these maps and the Google images were kindly provided by Mr Michael T Holder
Location: Just N of Constantine Bay village, about 3nm WSW of Padstow
Period of operation: 28th and 29th May 1930
NOTES: Mike Holder traced this article from the Cornish Guardian published on the 29th May.
THE PRINCE IN HIS DUCHY.
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ROYAL FLIGHT TO THE WEST.
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VISITS TO STOKE CLIMSLAND AND PADSTOW
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"AT A QUARTER TO SIX last evening H.R.H. the Prince of Wales completed the final stage of his journey by air from London to his Duchy. The light was fading, the sky overcast, and a chilly breeze was blowing from the sea when above the tamarisk hedge of a sloping field adjoining the Trevose Golf Links, near Constantine Bay two aeroplanes came into view flying steadily, and it seemed almost with wings touching, to a grey expanse of sea beyond the sand dunes."
"As the machines crossed over the heads of the hundred or so spectators who had been waiting for nearly two hours in the hope of catching a glimpse of the Prince, one of them swung suddenly round in a stunt which brought exclamations to the lips of the crowd below, and after, completing another swerve with engine shut off, flew to the eastern end of the field, gradually descending as it did so. The machine, a dark red Moth, (My note: The de Havilland DH60M Moth G-AALG), took the ground beautifully and gliding gracefully to the lower corner of the field in which a small bell tent had been erected."
How quaint. The "stunt" would have been, without much if any doubt, a descending banked turn, as was the "swerve" and the engine revs were reduced to idle - definitely not "shut off". As for "gliding" - this was taxying. But of course, even in those days, and especially in that part of the world, very few people would have been acquainted with perfectly commonplace flying techniques - or how to describe them. Probably little has changed, by and large - since.
"In the seat immediately behind the pilot, (Mr E.H. Fielden), sat the Prince, only his helmeted head and his face being visible. The door of the little compartment was speedily opened and the Prince, pulling off his helmet, stepped out and was soon divesting himself of his heavy coat."
And it seems, soon enjoying a cigarette.
What clearly was not known was that typically, in a DH60 Moth, (and DH82 Tiger Moth for that matter), is that the pilot occupied the rear seat. The instructor, safety pilot or indeed a passenger - sat in the front cockpit. But that time it appears, the Prince was already quite an experienced pilot, so we'll never know who was actually on the controls for that approach and landing.
It has of course, and ever since,(?), been required that a member of the Royal family only flies with a highly qualified pilot to monitor the proceedings, and safeguard the 'Royal'. Doesn't always work though - like when the current Prince of Wales crashed after landing - with rather expensive consequences - at the controls of a Queens Flight BAe 146 at ISLAY in the Inner Hebrides.
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