I've been thinking of doing this for some time so this is an experiment to see how it goes. My first profile of a specific aircraft illustrated with my own photos. I've chosen the little Southern Martlet as I know some of the history of this particular example. This might be better in the appropriate forum but I think it will get more views here.

As most regulars here will know, my local airport at Shoreham has played a big part in my life. I've been visiting the airport for almost as long as I can remember & first worked there in 1960 as general factotum for the Southern Aero Club. F.G. Miles Ltd was based on the airport at the time so I met a lot of people working for the company, including my future father-in-law although we were both blissfully unaware of that then.

Long before this I could often be found in one of the WWII gun emplacements on the airport perimeter that me & like-minded friends used as a spotting base. We collected the registrations in those days & one interesting one at Shoreham was on a light blue fuselage stored at the back of the Flight Shed with the registration G-AAYX clearly marked on it. It was listed in our registration books as a Southern Martlet but that's the only information we had & I promptly forgot about it. I remember seeing it on visiting the Flight Shed when I first started work for the club but nobody seemed to know much about it or why it was there.

Turn the clock forward some 40 years when I visited Old Warden for the first time for several years. I was pleasantly surprised to see the same aircraft, now beautifully restored to flying condition. The restoration had also won several awards.
So what am I going on about? Heres some photos I've taken during various displays at Old Warden over the last couple of seasons. The static ones were taken last Saturday before the Sunset Display.







This pretty little plane in the air. It performs very well & looks fun to fly.


I copied this from the Shuttleworth Collection website: http://www.shuttleworth.org/html/shuttleworth/air19.htm
"The Southern Martlet was designed by F.G. Miles, who had established Southern Aircraft at Shoreham in Sussex. Miles acquired several aircraft components from the former Avro factory at Hamble in 1926. Among these was the fuselage of an Avro Baby, Miles modified this aeroplane with a new undercarriage and tail unit and fitted a different engine to create the Martlet.

Only six Martlets were built, and each one was slightly different from each other. Five different types of engines were used and many other details differences occurred. Martlets were used as air racing machines, but did not achieve any real success. However the Southern Martlet achieved great success and popularity as aerobatic and demonstration aeroplanes. The last Martlet was built in 1931 and a variant of the Southern Martlet was also built in that year, called the Metal Martlet. It was not a success and had only a short flying career.

G-AAYX, constructors number 202, was used for many years as the personal aircraft of F.G. Miles. It was taken by Miles with him to Woodley, near Reading, when he set up Miles Aircraft. Miles Aircraft later built aircraft such as the Magister. While at Woodley, G-AAYX was used by the Reading Aero Club, 'YX survived World War Two intact and was acquired by Butlins, who used it to give displays for holidaymakers at Broomhall, Pwllheli.
 
It was acquired by the Collection in 1960 and stored for many years. In 1988 an extensive restoration to flying condition was begun, led by full-time engineer Andy Preslent; he was assisted by Tony Dowson, Ken Hyde and the late Roy Gambier. This restoration culminated in the Martlet's first flight in 50 years on September 25th 2000.

The Southern Martlet has been awarded the Vintage Aeroplane Club's 'Vintage Aeroplane of the Year' Trophy for 2001."

Hope you find this interesting.

PS. My boss at the Southern Aero Club, the one & only Cecil Pashley, went into partnership with F.G. Miles after WWI & taught him to fly. The Southern Martlet was the first of a long line of successful Miles aircraft.

That Martlet's a real peach... the propeller is a work of art!!
Great idea- looking forward to the series.

Very nice Doug..........v. nice indeed......

A fascinating story Doug, such as small world and i can imagine the look on your face when you saw it
Was this the first time you managed to have a proper close inspection of it? Or did you manage that whilst you was at Shoreham. Did everyone else just think it was just a normal airplane? I suppose the same go's for the same as many aircraft, until there is only a few left in the world, thats when they become interesting
You included some great info on the bird and a nice bit of history to read aswell.
Did you manage to speak to the pilot to ask him how it was?
It looks like a real aircraft, and it certainly has a story to be told!
Thanks alot for sharing with us all Doug,

Again, another "smile" on the face.

James 8)

Quote:


I'm sure it has featured inAeroplane recently, or maybe it was Prop-Swing. I'll see if I can find it, and maybe transpose a little of the text, which I think was from Andy Sephton...

I'll certainly do that Clipper. That's if I remember as it might be quite a while before I do another profile like this.

You could always pop in here every now & again. There's always a lot of interesting photos & it doesn't get quite as many visitors as the Screenies forums, which I think is a shame. If the weather plays ball I have another couple of air shows to visit before the end of the season. Then that's it until next May, apart from a couple of special events.