LOUTH'S FLYING FLEA 1934

& Lincolnshire Flying Services

Author. Mr. Geoffrey Wright

Tel. 01260 277176

geoffandwinn@appleonline.net

 

 

 

BRIEF HISTORY OF LOUTH'S FLYING FLEA

I always thought that my father had built a Flying Flea, but research has shown that this was not the complete truth.

An article in the Louth Advertiser dated 14th September, 1935 read as follows:-.

Louth's "Flying Flea"

Joiners make all sorts of queer things from cradles to coffins, but few of them are as enterprising as Mr. J. Rotherham of Enginegate, Louth, who is making an aeroplane. He is in fact making a "Flying Flea" in accordance with the instructions given in M. Henri Mignet's book, and he hopes it will take to the air soon. A Sunday newspaper was responsible for the idea. Mr. Rotherham read of the capabilities of M. Mignet's "Flying Flea" and the thing took his fancy. The next step was to send for a copy  of the book which now lies, bearing fingermarks which tell of a long and intent perusal, on Mr. Rotherham's workbench - and get to work.

Years of experience pattern-making gave him a flying start when it came to model-making, and the midget plane, although only half finished as yet, is a sound and attractive piece of work. Constructed of three-ply wood and spruce, its large wing has a span of six metres (19ft. 7ins) and its small wing four metres (13ft. 1"), while the body of the plane is nine feet long.

The Engine.

As it stands at present - the engine, of course, not having been fitted - the plane can be lifted with ease. The mahogany propeller has still to be fitted, together with the engine, which is being assembled by Mr. Fred Wright, who is well known as an enthusiastic flyer. The engine will an 8 h.p. or 9 h.p. with a speed of about 65 m.p.h

Mr. Rotherham, who until now has not been in the slightest degree air minded, shows signs of becoming a convert in the near future. True, to use his own expression, "he has never fancied going up in a big plane," but the Flying Flea of his own making is a different proposition. He has seen the little machines demonstrated and watched the pilot of one shut off his engine at a height of 1,000 feet and come gliding down to land like a bird.

Mr. Wright will probably pilot Louth's first "Flying Flea" on its trial trip, but as one watched Mr. Rotherham look upon his little plane and love it, one felt that it would not be long before he took charge of it himself,

There are prospects that a club will be formed in Louth.

My first recollection of the Flying Flea is seeing it in my father's hangar up the Kenwick Road, standing beside the old Avro 504k he owned.

He and Harold Wilson, manager of the whitening pits, were painstakingly covering the fuselage and wings with calico which was then sprayed with "dope" to make it stretch taut on the framework. The engine was fitted to a wooden bench which was dragged outside the hangar when the engine was being tested. Theattached photograph shows the engine on the bench and is the only photograph relating to the Flea that I possess.

 

 

 
In 1936 there was a gate in the right hand corner of the picture and the hangar containing

the Flying Flea and Avro 504K was about 50 yards inside the field. The old whitening pits

were behind the trees at the top left of the picture.

 

 

 

I am indebted to the Flying Flea Archive for information which revealed that the aircraft was registered on the 29th February, 1936 in the name of F.G. Wright. The registration letters were G-AEBR and the constructor's number FGW 1.  It was removed from the register on 31st December, 1938.

An "Authorisation to Fly", equivalent to a "Certificate of Airworthiness", was never issued.

That was all I knew about the Flying Flea until I discovered that a friend of my father's, Harold Wilson, was still alive at the age of 89.

Mr Harold Wilson - 10th June 1992

This is a transcription of a conversation with Mr Harold Wilson aged 89 at 7 Mayfield Crescent, Louth, Lincolnshire on the 10th June 1992. In the 1930's Mr Wilson was manager of the Whitening Pits and lived in the first house of a block of 4 at the top of Kenwick Road overlooking Wright's Aerodrome. My father kept an Avro 504k and a Flying Flea in a hangar there and Mr Wilson helped with the maintenance of both of them. He died in 1996.

THE FLYING FLEA (POU DE CIEL)

Geoff:   I didn't realise he had a joiner. I used to think that you and my father had built it.

Mr Wilson:   Fred had it made but I didn't know who.

Geoff:   It was a Mr Rotherham of Enginegate according to the Louth Advertiser (14/9/35) who built the frame and then it must have come up to the hangar.

Mr Wilson:   We covered it then. It was doped you know with acetate.

Geoff:    Was it a JAP motor cycle engine? I remember seeing it outside the hangar on a bench. I've got a photograph of that.

Mr Wilson:   It was opposing cylinders. I thought it was a Douglas type, but I think it was a bit bigger capacity than the Douglas motor bike. It had one or two of the letters "A" in  its name if you understand me.

Geoff:   John remembers it. He says it was in our old garage after the war in a pile of scrap. When the garage collapsed in 1947 it was probably disposed of.

Mr Wilson:   I wouldn't have been a bit surprised if you'd said Mr Hunt got it, the engineer, a fitter/turner man. He lived up the Grimsby Road. His workshop was on the right hand side past the offices in a sort of a side yard. (East Lincs Garage)

Geoff:   Then there was the welder's shop. There was the old gas, acetylene generator, there. A big round thing. Your remember the Flying Flea - what was it covered with.

Mr Wilson:  A good quality linen like the old Avro. They used to have what they called pinking shears, and they used to cut pieces tapewise to cover the joins. And these pinking shears make a zig-zag edge both sides and it stopped fraying. That used to be put on all the joints on the struts as reinforcing over the nails or whatever it was. I think there was a lot of sewing done with good quality twine.

Winn:   Did you ever go up in the Flea ?

Mr Wilson:   No, but your father did. Now, there was a man called Harry Crowson. He was a joiner and undertaker with a furnishing company in the town. And your father got in touch with him, - of course they knew one another like old boys you know - and he spoke to Harry about this. Now Harry in the first world war was moved to Lincoln and he was building aircraft there. So he got to talk to Harry about this propeller. He said you want a piece of mahogany. So Fred, he got this piece of mahogany from somewhere in Lincoln, a beautiful plank it was. Well we worked on this and Harry told him how to get the correct screw. In different sizes you had a template from the horizontal and there was a certain angle there and as you went along that angle gradually increased or decreased whichever way you were going from the centre point. Well we worked on this hour after hour, this propeller, beautiful material.

We put it on to the engine, and your father took off up the field, taxying up to the top corner. And he came down, oh beautiful, she was coming nicely, and he just took her off the ground and the propeller smashed to pieces. It absolutely wrecked it. The boss was left with all jagged edges. I think he got off maybe two or three feet and down he came quite comfortably.

Geoff:   I've got a walking stick made of mahogany, and the story is that it's supposed to be a bit from that propeller. Now whether it is or not I don't know?.  it's solid mahogany. The knob is an old bus gear lever handle, the knob on the end of it.

Mr Wilson   Well, the next stage to the propeller, we made another. He got in touch with someone who was a real propeller expert. And he said that the solid wooden one was altogether wrong. You had to have planks glued up and gradually twist them round in their length, so what you got, you got steps there and steps underneath and the five or six boards, say an inch thick, were all put a bit out of step to one another. And that helped to make the twist that I was saying. So we took the steps off and gradually worked it down, so that you got a laminated propeller which was much, much stronger. Your father got so much of it - he might have bought two or three boards more than was necessary - and it could be that the walking stick you're talking about could be out of one of them.

Geoff:    Unfortunately the walking stick is broken. Another dog attacked our dog and I hit this other dog with it and it snapped. I stuck it together again.

Geoff:   Talking about the Flying Flea. You put another propeller on it. Presumably my father then had another go, did he?

Mr Wilson:   Oh yes, and made it, but it never flew. In fact I doubt if it was ever put on the boss of the engine. The war came along and of course........

Geoff:   So that was the end on the Flying Flea was it ?

Mr Wilson:    He didn't put the propeller on. I'm sure it was never put on. I don't think it ever..............

Geoff:   What did he do with it ? I know where the wheels ended up. On a truck he had up at the smallholding. But John tells me he used the fuselage and wheels as a truck running it up and down Kenwick Road until the body had to be broken up.

Mr Wilson:   Did he get his index numbers issued (for the flying flea)?

Geoff:  I can find out as the registers are still in existence. In the same way I have discovered there is a Flying Flea Society in existence .

Mr Wilson:   The funny ending to this Flying Flea as far as the serial number is concerned. It was either one they issued to your father or one they issued to somebody else after your father because it was in trouble that the other kite was, the other man that had got it, and your dad was taken over the coals about it because they said it was his machine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I remember seeing the Flying Flea on show at the Air Display described in the following advertisement date 26th May, 1936. It didn't fly on that day, in fact it never flew again.  As mentioned by Mr. Wilson, a new propeller was made but there were numerous crashes involving Fleas and my father decided that it would be too risky to make another attempt. I believe that wind tunnel tests revealed that in a dive the centre of gravity moved too far forward and it was difficult to recover. Subsequently, modified plans were issued, and the aircraft was declared safe. In fact there  is now a Flying Flea Society whose members have built safe versions and arrange annual flying meetings open to the public. I still have an Airspeed indicator which I believe was removed from  my father's Avro 504K and fitted in the Flying Flea.

The Flea was dismantled and my youngest brother, John, remembers playing with the fuselage and wheels as a go-cart. The wheels eventually became part of a truck used by my father on his smallholding in the 1950's.

I now live in Congleton, Cheshire, and I will finish this brief history with a poem which was published in the Congleton Chronicle after a local intrepid Flea Pilot, Harold Burns, crashed for the second time in 1936. He became  a ferry pilot in the last war and used to fly his Flea from a field at the rear of our present house.

Flea, fly, flow, flop,

We saw it start, and we heard it stop,

Be he alive, or be he dead?,

....He's crashed his 'plane, and bumped his yed.

 

 

LINCOLNSHIRE FLYING SERVICES

 
The Airfield, Kenwick Road, Louth. the original site of the Hangar. The

Whitening Pits were on the top left. The Hangar was sold after the War

to Dick Marshall, a famer at Welton on the Lincoln Road and is now

used as a commercial garage.

 

 
The Avro with advertising banners.

 

 

 
The Avro after it crashed in 1934

 

 
Fred Wright and his wife, Jesse in

front of the Avro.

 

 

 
The Avro with a horse drawn carriage at the Cross Inn, Mablethorpe

 

 

 
Pilot Kennedy, Maurice Smith the butcher and two ladies

 

 

 

 

 

 

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