Visit to RAF Hendon – Wednesday 22nd September 2010
Fifteen members and friends gathered at Sainsbury's car park in Epsom. Leaving our cars, thanks to kind permission of the supermarket, we boarded the shiny new bus and under the guidance of Pat Hunt left for Hendon on a beautifully warm and sunny morning.
We engaged our pilot George and landed one and a half hours later at 10.55 precisely at the Royal Air Force Museum in Hendon. David Benke’s scooter was unloaded from the hold and we assembled for the obligatory team photo before proceeding to the ‘check in’ desk.
Our first port of call was to the 1917 Grahame – White Factory (see footnote), the UK’s first aircraft factory, which now houses the museum’s oldest aircraft many of which were built at around the same time.
The Battle of Britain Hall, as you would expect, housed the legendary Hurricane and Spitfire together with the German equivalent the Messerschmitt 109. There were also a number of other exhibits from the Second World War.
The Bomber Hall was dominated by the Avro Lancaster (of Dam Busters fame) and the huge Vulcan Bomber, both of which had enormous bomb bays. We were surprised by the number of aircraft contained in the exhibition which included helicopters, seaplanes, fighters, jet aircraft and a 1920’s autogiro – in fact there was not enough time to take in everything on display.
We assembled at around 1500 hours for the return journey landing safely back at Kiln Lane before the rush hour.
Everybody seemed to have a good time and I was particularly pleased that each of the ladies who came made a point of saying how much she had enjoyed the trip.
Pat Hunt, Social Secretary
23rd September 2010
Photographs with thanks to Sue Hunt, Molly Sullivan and Cliff Douthwaite
Claude Grahame White was born in Burleson, Hampshire in 1879. He learned to drive in 1895, was apprenticed as an engineer and later started his own motor engineering company. In 1909 he learned to fly in France, and became one of the first Englishmen to qualify as a pilot.
Achievements in Aviation
On July 2, 1910, Claude Grahame-White, in his Farman biplane, won the £1,000 first prize for Aggregate Duration in Flight In the same year he won the Gordon Bennett Aviation Cup in Belmont Park, Long Island, New York, for which he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Aero Club. His noted achievements though were centred in the commercialisation of aeronautics. He was also involved in promoting the military application of air power before the First World War with a campaign called "Wake Up Britain", and experimented with fitting various weapons and bombs to planes. During the war itself he mounted the first aerial defence of a city.
Grahame-White Factory interior, reconstructed at the RAF Museum London In 1911 he established a teaching school at Hendon, which quickly became Hendon Aerodrome. The Aerodrome was lent to the Admiralty (1916), and eventually taken over by the RAF in 1919. Grahame White's aerodrome was purchased by the RAF in 1925, after a long and protracted legal struggle. After this he lost his interest in aviation, eventually moving to Nice in his old age, where he died in 1959 having made a fortune in property development in the UK and USA.
Hendon Aerodrome later became RAF Hendon but after flying ceased there in the 1960s, it was then largely redeveloped built as a housing estate which was named Grahame Park in tribute to Grahame-White. An original World War 1 Grahame-White aircraft factory hangar relocated a few years ago at the RAF Museum houses the museum's WW1 collection and is named the Grahame White Factory
