Derek Webb: 'The First Flight' (2020)

Description

Lede
In 1912, the race was on to see who would be the first person to successfully make the crossing between Great Britain and Ireland by aeroplane.

Story
In 1912 'aeroplaning', as it was then known, was in its infancy. Owning an aeroplane was something that only the rich could indulge in. But indulge in it they did. One of these early aeroplane pioneers was Denys Corbett Wilson. An Anglo-Irishman, his mother was from Kilkenny in Ireland and his father was a wealthy barrister.

Not many years after the Wright brothers made the first flight, and only a couple after Louis Bleriot first flew the English Channel, Corbett Wilson bought a Bleriot XI monoplane for the princely sum of £480 – excluding the engine. He kept his new machine at Hendon aerodrome in north London. It was here that he met a fellow flier, Damer Leslie Allen, who challenged Corbett Wilson to a race across the sea to Ireland. Despite neither of them having flown much further than 30 miles at any time, they ambitiously decided to fly across to Ireland, by way of Chester and Holyhead. The pair set off on the afternoon of 17 April.

Allen followed the railway lines north, while Corbett Wilson found himself buffeted by winds which had sprung up. The conditions were worse than expected and caused Wilson's compass to be dislodged and lost. Without a compass, he looked for anywhere he could land and spotted a field below him, which turned out to be a farm near Hereford. Landing without incident, he managed to get a lift to a hotel and the next day went off in search of a new compass, petrol and oil for his plane. At the time aeroplane engines used castor oil as a lubricant. Its advantage was it didn't mix with the petrol. Its disadvantage was that a plane needed nearly as much oil as it did petrol.

For Corbett Wilson, the added problem was that the castor oil he bought in Hereford the next day was the wrong grade and within a few miles of taking off and heading westwards, the engine began to fail. Once more he was forced down but this time he was high above the Black Mountains. Miraculously, he succeeded in finding the only area of flat land for miles around: a field in Colva, Radnorshire.

He must have thought that the race to Ireland was by now well and truly lost. But when his mechanic arrived the next day with the correct grade of oil and petrol, he learned the tragic news about Damer Allen. He had made Chester as arranged and set off again for Holyhead where he was observed flying out to sea – never to be seen again.

This must have been a reality check for Corbett Wilson; had he not already known full well how hazardous was the journey he was attempting. But undaunted, he set off again for what he describes as 'a lovely flight over moor and mountain to the sea' arriving in Goodwick around 7.00am on 21 April. He spent the night at the Great Western Railway's splendid Fishguard Bay Hotel.

The next day, as he left Goodwick at 5.47am, the weather was perfect. But 20 miles from the Irish coast he flew into heavy rain and thick cloud. His engine also began to misfire and his compass began behaving erratically too, so he flew on blind for several miles until, through a break in the clouds, he spotted fields below in Crane, near Enniscorthy, and decided to land. In the pouring rain, the Bleriot touched down and kept on going until eventually its progress was stopped by a what he describes as 'a good honest Wexford stone faced bank'. But he had arrived and claimed for himself the distinction of being the first person to have flown successfully between the two countries.

Factoid
- The first successful manned flight between Great Britain and Ireland was made on 22 April 1912 by Denys Corbett Wilson, who took off from Goodwick in Pembrokeshire at 5.47am and landed in Crane in Co. Wexford just over 100 minutes later.

- Corbett Wilson was racing his friend and fellow aviation enthusiast, Damer Allen, whose plane was observed flying out to sea from Holyhead on 18 April 1912, but was never seen again.

- During the First World War, Corbett Wilson would go on to serve in the Royal Flying Corps. In May 1915, he was killed when his plane was shot down during a reconnaissance mission.

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