Journal of Aeronautical History Paper 2018/06

Blowing in the Wind: Eardley Billing’s Oscillator and its Successors

Martin Bolton

SUMMARY

Eardley Billing (1873-1915) is one of the names most frequent cited in histories of flight simulation, owing to the widely available photographs of him and his ‘oscillator’ yet very little has been written about his life. This article integrates all that the author has been able to discover about the man and his career as an engineer, using a wide variety of sources. After 14 years in the automobile industry he transferred his interests to aviation, basing himself in Essex and then at . He developed his ‘Oscillator’ as a training aid for pilots, in which the trainee balanced the device by using flying controls in a natural wind. He also designed and built a tractor biplane which was considered advanced for its time.

Billing’s ‘Oscillator’ is compared with other similar contemporary examples in Britain and elsewhere, and their impact on flight training in the period from 1910 to the 1920s and beyond evaluated through contemporary comments, though no formal assessment has been found. Relatively few ‘balancer’ training devices were constructed and there was considerable doubt as to their value as a training aid. Flight simulators contributed little to pilot training until the introduction of flight under instrument conditions, and the ‘balancers’ did not lead to the subsequent generations of flight simulators.

1. Introduction

Eardley Billing’s see-saw like device, the ‘oscillator’, is still one of the best known of the very early flight training machines. It is frequently mentioned in surveys of flight simulator history, and is also familiar through the frequent reproduction of images like Figures 1 and 2 below, which evoke the atmosphere of flying grounds in Edwardian England.

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Figure 1 The most widely reproduced picture of the Oscillator in use at Brooklands (Flight A85)

Figure 2 Flying in the air and on the ground at Brooklands (Royal Aeronautical Society, National Aerospace Library)

Nevertheless, very little has been published about the background to the invention or the inventor himself. Where he is mentioned it is usually stated that he was the brother of politician and entrepreneur and that he and his wife ran the Blue Bird Restaurant at the Brooklands ‘flying village’ before the First World War, but little more. The Eardley Billing name became more widely known as a result of a reproduction of his biplane,

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Journal of Aeronautical History Paper 2018/06 built at Brooklands, being used in the 1965 film Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines 1. He was, though, well known in the British aviation world during the brief period when he was active, spanning the years 1909-1913. C. G. Grey, erstwhile editor of The Aeroplane, wrote of Billing that he was ‘one of the ablest mechanics and most ingenious 2 contrivers of detail work who ever built an aeroplane’ .

This paper first reviews Billing’s short career, in the motor industry in section 2 and later in aviation in section 3 onwards, based on the few sources now available. This is followed by a review of the development, use and impact of his trainer and other similar flight training devices developed in the same period.

2. Billing’s early career in the motor industry (c.1896-1909)

3 Eardley Delauny Billing, the first child of Charles Eardley and Annie Amelia Billing, was born and baptised in 1873 in South Kensington, West . His father Charles Billing, originally from Birmingham, was in the 1860s operating an ironmongery business jointly with his older brother Alfred, in Birmingham and from a premises in Oxford Street, London. Charles’s wife Annie, whom he married in London in 1872, was from Coventry.

Eardley was one of six children. He had four sisters, one of whom died in infancy, and a brother, Noel Pemberton, the youngest, born in 1881. At the time of Noel’s birth the family 4 home was in Hampstead at 6 College Villas , just off the Finchley Road and near the Swiss Cottage. The 1881 census records Charles’s occupation as ‘gas stove manufacturer’. The 1891 census return shows the family now living at 100 Abbey Road, Kilburn5. The occupation of Charles is now recorded as ‘gas stove then burner manufacturer’ while Eardley, aged 17, is simply ‘son of gas stove manufacturer’. Barbara Stoney, in her biography of Noel Pemberton Billing, refers to a number of inventions that Charles is said to have patented, but only one

1 The ground training device seen at the ‘Brookley’ airfield in the film was modelled on the ‘tonneau d’apprentissage’ used at the Antoinette school at Mourmelon-le-Grand. 2 The Aeroplane, 24 November 1915, p.660. 3 His middle name is spelt both ‘Delauny’ and ‘Delauney’ in official records. The register of births uses the first version, while in his patent applications he uses the second. 4 Now called College Crescent. The original house no longer exists. 5 This is house has also gone.

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Journal of Aeronautical History Paper 2018/06 seems to have been registered and available in the current on-line patent database: that for an 6 improved gas burner resulting from an application made in 1897 .

Sometime before 1896 Eardley moved to Coventry to work for Edward Pennington’s Great Horseless Carriage Company at the Motor Mills. Here he worked on Pennington's ‘Autocar’ 7 motor tricycle (Figure 3) . The American serial entrepreneur Edward J. Pennington (1858- 1911) was a notorious promoter and inventor, who raised millions for schemes almost all of which failed. He claimed to have given the Prince of Wales his first ride in a motor car 8.

Figure 3 An overloaded Pennington Autocar. Billing is at the back with bowler hat.

A letter from Billing published in The Autocar in 1896 confirms his connection with Pennington 9. In this letter he questions the merits of the French Bollée machine as compared with the Pennington Autocar at the London to Brighton Run held in November of that year. The letter provoked an indignant rebuttal.

6 British Patent 30,132 of 1897. 7 See Kimberley. Only five Autocars were made; the last surviving one can be seen in the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu. (Full references are given in section 14 bibliography) 8 ‘The Passing of Pennington’, The Motor World, Vol.26, No.1, 1911, pp.979-80. 9 ‘What happened to the Pennington’, The Autocar, 19 December 1896, p.718. (Billing wrote from the family’s Kilburn address in London).

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In 1898 Billing, together with Arthur Hallet, formed the Endurance Motor Company in Coventry. The company manufactured engines and other motor components, as well as two models of the Endurance car. Billing and Hallett applied for a patent in 1898, although a complete specification was not published, so it was probably abandoned. The company was 10 wound up in 1900 .

In Coventry Billing met and married Ada Marston. The wedding took place in 1899. The marriage certificate records that Ada was the daughter of a watchmaker, and gives Eardley’s occupation as ‘Engineer’. After the marriage, and presumably after the collapse of the Endurance Motor Company, Eardley moved back to London with Ada.

Eardley’s father Charles and sister Mabel were at this time living at 180 Wardour Street in Soho. His mother Annie had died in 1899. Mabel, unusually for a woman of that time (or even this), seems to have followed her father’s footsteps into engineering. Evidence for this is that she was awarded a patent in 1900 for an improved gas governor11. Brother Noel was also a prolific inventor and serial entrepreneur, even though he is best known for his later activities as relentless self-publicist, Member of Parliament and founder of the 12 Company . Noel’s patents, in addition to the aeronautical ones, covered topics as varied as typewriters, calculating machines, gramophones, cameras, and more. The patent database holds 172 records which name Noel Pemberton Billing as inventor.

Eardley remained in the motor business after his return to London. The Electrical Engineer magazine notes that in 1901 Eardley Billing applied for a patent jointly with Alfred Dunhill for an ‘Improved Terminal for Electric Wires’. This application seems to have been 13 abandoned, as the patent is not in the British Patent database . Alfred Dunhill (1872-1959) was a manufacturer and dealer in accessories for motorists. Dunhill’s famous motto was that 14 he could supply motorists with ‘Everything but the Motor’ .

10 Kimberley 11 British Patent 5,979 of 1900 12 G. R. Searle, ‘Billing, Noel Pemberton (1881–1948)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. 13 Application number 6,085 of 21 March, 1901 14 Barbara Trompeter, ‘Dunhill, Alfred (1872–1959)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. He would later extend this to ‘Everything but the Aeroplane’.

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In 1901 the Motor Car Journal announced: Mr Eardley Billing has resigned his position as manager of the Motor Mart and has started on his own account as the Central Motor Company, 46A Tottenham St, Tottenham Court Road, W. A feature of the Central Motor Company’s business is the letting out on hire of motor-bicycles 15.

Motor Mart was published by Alfred Dunhill.

Eardley’s brother Noel shared with him an enthusiasm for motoring, as he did later for aviation. For example, in November 1901 the two brothers took part in a drive to Portsmouth 16 to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Locomotives on Highways Act .

The Aeronautical Journal lists an Eardley Billing patent application of 1902, this time in his name alone, with the subject ‘Reversing Gear for Motor Launches, Airships, &c’. This 17 patent is not listed in the database, so one must assume it was abandoned . The background to this invention is unknown. Perhaps it had a connection with another of the many enterprises of Edward Pennington, who had a plan to build armed airships for his ‘British Aerial War 18 Syndicate’ .

Charles Billing, Eardley’s father, died in 1903. In 1904 Eardley and Ada’s first and only child, Louisa, was born. Their family home and place of business was now 5 New Burlington Place, 185 Regent Street. The Autocar carried advertisements in 1905 offering driving tuition: Eardley Billing, expert with Panhard cars; reports, valuations, lessons in driving: 5 hours, 2 guineas.

Not everyone in the West End was happy with the new automotive nuisance on the roads. Billing, along with others received a summons in 1905 for using a locomotive which did not 19 ‘consume its own smoke’, contrary to the Locomotives Act .

15 The Motor Car Journal, 9 November 1901, p.646. 16 Stoney 17 The Aeronautical Journal, April 1902, p.38. Application number 5,261 of 3 March 1902. 18 ‘End of Pennington, Erratic Promoter’, The New York Times, 10 March 1911. 19 The Motor Car Journal, 19 August 1905, p.542.

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In 1907 both The Auto and The Motor Car Journal carried details of the formation of a new company: Carlton Garage Ltd: “Capital £2,000 in £1 shares. Object, to take over the business carried on by E. D. Billing, at 5, New Burlington Place, W., as the Carlton Garage. First directors, E. D. Billing (managing director), and J. G. Phillips.”

Eardley’s wife Ada was one of the first women in England to learn to drive and, moreover, to enter a motor race. Motor racing at Brooklands started in 1907 and in July 1908 the first race 20 open to women drivers, The Ladies’ Bracelet Handicap , took place. Ada Billing was one of the entrants, driving Mr C. L. Woodward’s 22.4 h.p. Mass. Unfortunately Ada’s car failed to start the race, which was won by Miss Muriel Thompson in her brother Oscar’s Austin 21 ‘Pobble’. Second was Mrs Locke King, wife of the owner of Brooklands .

The Regent Street motor business was still in operation in early 1909. In January Billing was advertising for sale a 1906 Panhard Landaulet for £375 22. Possibly this was to raise capital for his new occupation as an aeroplane constructor.

3. Billing moves to aviation and develops the trainer (1909-1910)

The second phase of Eardley Billing’s engineering career was in aviation, a field in which his brother Noel was already becoming a conspicuous player.

Along with his numerous and varied money-making schemes and mechanical inventions, 23 Noel (a ‘far-seeing though erratic genius’ according to Harald Penrose ) turned his hand to aeroplane design. His first efforts, building a , did not meet with much success. Nevertheless, he managed to raise £150 from a sponsor for a second attempt, and needed to find a site on which to develop and test it. There was what seemed to be a suitable site, a disused factory on a flat area of reclaimed land on the southern bank of the River Crouch at South Fambridge in Essex. Here in early 1909 he established his ‘Colony of British Aerocraft’, where he hoped to attract a community of developers of experimental machines. The only condition he placed on his tenants was that there should be a patriotic aspect to their work, in

20 So called because the first prize was a bracelet (the second was a brooch) 21 ‘Ladies Bracelet Handicap’, The Times, 6 July 1908. 22 The Autocar, 2 January 1909, p.33. (£375 in today’s values would be more than £20,000) 23 Penrose

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Journal of Aeronautical History Paper 2018/06 keeping with his other, grander, ambition to create the nucleus of an ‘Imperial Flying 24 Squadron’ which could be made available to the nation in times of crisis .

Some well-known figures in early British aviation were associated with the Fambridge venture, and used the facilities there for the construction and testing of their machines. The first manager of the aerodrome appointed by Pemberton Billing (as he now wished to be known) was Eric Gordon England. Others who worked on projects at Fambridge were José Weiss, Frederick , Howard Wright and Robert Macfie.

25 According to C. C. Turner , Macfie was instrumental in introducing Eardley Billing, amongst others, into aviation. Macfie (1881-1943), born in the United States, was of Scottish descent. After training at the Royal Naval Engineering College, Keyham, he worked on engineering projects around the world. On his return to England at the beginning of 1909, and after witnessing flights by the French aviation pioneers, he was stimulated to start construction of his own aeroplane at Fambridge.

Eardley Billing was among the group of mechanics and experimenters who joined Noel at Fambridge. An article published in 1967 claimed that he and his family were still remembered locally 26. Presumably he assisted others with the design and construction of their prototypes, and it seems very likely that his trainer was conceived and built in the Fambridge workshops. 27 In July 1910 he lodged a provisional patent application for this trainer . In this application 28 his address is given as 24 Southchurch Road, Southend on Sea , about 8 miles from South Fambridge. This presumably was the new family home.

The marshland site at South Fambridge proved to be unsuitable for flying and Pemberton Billing was forced to abandon the project; by early 1910 the colony had been disbanded. In November 1909 Macfie had already moved his testing to nearby Foulness Island and the Maplin Sands. He was forced to leave there by the military authorities, and after an unsuccessful attempt to continue the testing in France, in 1910 he transferred his activities to

24 ‘Flying Grounds at Fambridge’, Flight, 20 February 1909, pp.100-102. 25 Turner 26 Peter Lewis, ‘Fambridge Remembered’, Air Pictorial, Vol.29, No.2, February 1967, p.65. 27 British Patent 16,773 of 1910: An Improved Machine for Teaching the Art of Flying without Leaving the Ground. Application date: 12 July, 1910. (This is the only Eardley Billing patent for which a Complete Specification was issued, and thus the only one in the database.) 28 This house still stands, and at the time of writing the ground floor was being used as a newsagent and off-licence.

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Brooklands. Here a much more successful flying village had been opened in late 1909 within the Brooklands racing circuit at Weybridge. Eardley Billing moved there too in 1910. The complete patent specification for his trainer, dated January 1911, shows his address as Brooklands Aviation Ground.

The trainer patent claims are quite broad. They cover a device, whether an adapted aeroplane or a specifically constructed apparatus, mounted on a universal joint, and which takes advantage the natural wind in order to teach the operation of the flying controls (Figures 4a and 4b). This can obviously only work if the wind is strong enough: the patent specification states that a wind of at least 10 mph is required. The student would learn to use the controls to compensate for the natural disturbances caused by gusts with variations of wind speed and direction.

The embodiment described in the patent is a device specifically constructed for training, not being a modified aeroplane. The device is a simple rectangular braced frame, on the corners of which are mounted four controllable planes, two coupled planes at the front and rear for longitudinal control and two coupled planes at the sides for lateral control. These are operated by cables directly from either a single control lever or two levers, one each for longitudinal and lateral control. In the embodiment described a foot-operated bar acts on the fixed base to enable the trainer to be directed into the wind. The alternative scheme of connecting this bar to a rudder is also claimed as an option. Thus the operating principles of all of the devices mentioned in the following pages are covered by the claims of Eardley Billing’s patent. In addition, in common with many of the earlier flight training device patents, the possibility of using the trainer as an amusement device is also claimed.

Figure 4a The Oscillator (side elevation) (Illustration from British Patent 1910 16,773)

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Figure 4b The Oscillator (plan) (Illustration from British Patent 1910 16,773)

4. The trainer at Brooklands (1910-1912)

At Brooklands Billing found a position as the manager of Lane’s School. This school, established by Charles Lane in the spring of 1910, was the first of many flying schools at Brooklands. Lane had built a biplane glider on which he gave instruction, and he later acquired for the school a Blériot monoplane. As an alternative to the glider, Billing's oscillator could be used for practice on days when it was too windy for flying.

The trainer was first publicised in the aviation press in the summer of 1910. The picture in Figure 5, which appeared in the 24 August issue of The Aero, was captioned ‘An Apparatus for Fledgling Aviators’.

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Figure 5 First demonstration by Billing for the Press (The Aero, 24 August 1910)

The text below the picture explained that:

Mr. Eardley Billing, who runs the Lane Gliding School at Brooklands, has invented and patented the ingenious teaching machine on which he is shown above. It consists of two ailerons, an elevator and a tail, coupled to a Farman control, and fixed on a central pivot. The pupil’s task is to keep it on an even keel laterally and longitudinally, which is very difficult as the machine is so ‘tender.’ When once this is learned, the slow control of a glider seems easy, and it is claimed that a full-size machine is easier still to control.

Not everyone was so impressed. According to Howard Pixton, who worked with A.V. Roe at Brooklands:

Billing meanwhile busied himself with a Lane glider, saying that anyone who wanted to learn to fly should first learn how to glide and then graduate to the aeroplane. I didn’t go for this idea much, too remote, nor did I think much of an earthbound contraption he had which was supposed to simulate the rudimentary movements of 29 flight and was even further from the real thing.

During the course of 1910 numerous pictures of the trainer appeared in the aviation press, often as part of a weekly report on the flying activities at Brooklands. The caption to another illustration, published in the 27 August 1910 issue of Flight announced: A Machine for Teaching Pupils the Rudimentary Movements of Flying. This oscillating structure is the invention of Mr Eardley D. Billing, and is available at Brooklands Aerodrome for trial by flying aspirants.

29 Pixton, p.27

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Billing himself had not yet learnt to fly a powered aeroplane, but later learnt on the Lane School’s Blériot. The Aero reported on 28 September 1910: On the morning of Tuesday, September 20th, Mr. Eardley Billing made his maiden attempt in a Blériot monoplane, and executed several long hops. It is evident that Mr. Billing’s experience in gliding is proving useful, as he showed a much better control of the machine than the average first timer. Was this evidence for the efficacy of his trainer?

The caption to the illustration below, which appeared in the 12 October 1910 issue of The Aero, refers to the device as the Lane-Billing ‘Oscillator’. This term would now become more commonly used to describe the trainer, along with the alternative of ‘balancer’. Both words aptly described the nature of the device.

Figure 6 At Brooklands on October 5th 1910. On the left is the new Spencer-Stirling biplane, on the right Macfie’s biplane, and in the middle the Lane-Billing ‘Oscillator’ on which pupils are trained. (The Aero, 12 October 1910; Flight, March 31 1966)

A longer piece appeared in the 5 October 1910 issue of The Aero, promoting ‘The Billing Balancer’.

A propos the balancing machine, the invention of Mr. Eardley D. Billing, which was illustrated in The Aero recently. Mr. Billing writes to us that the side planes are 8ft × 3ft, and the arms are 20ft long; the height of the whole apparatus is only 6ft. It is provisionally patented and sells complete for £15. Mr. Billing is of the opinion that ‘when our belated Government realises that the aeroplane will be a deciding factor in

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future war, they would find a machine like this indispensable for the early training of officers and men’. The slight accidents and their concurrent expense which beset beginners would largely be avoided. Eardley evidently shared his brother Noel’s view on the importance of aeroplanes in future wars.

A further claim for the efficacy of the trainer was published in the 19 October 1910 issue of The Aero, as seen in the caption to the picture reproduced below.

Figure 7 Cecil Pashley with Billing (left) (The Aero,19 October 1910)

A Billing trainer was exhibited at the Stanley Show in London in November 1910, presented by Charles Lane. The caption to the picture of the device in Flight states that the machine is designed by Mr Eardley Billings (sic) to teach pupils ‘the essential points in regard to the manipulation of an aeroplane’.

Finally, Figure 8 shows the version with two control levers, an alternative which was embraced by Billing’s patent specification.

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Figure 8 The two-lever version of the Oscillator at Brooklands (reproduced in Aeroplane Monthly, October 1996)

A trainer was acquired by N. S. Percival, who had learnt to fly in a Billing biplane (see below). Percival had set up his own flying school at Brooklands in September 1911, and it operated until 1913. The 9 March 1912 Flight report of flying activities at Brooklands states: During the week Percival has had his “oscillator” at work in the wind, providing instruction and much amusement. Certainly a very sound method of instructing pupils in the method of maintaining equilibrium, who, if able to do so on this machine, should be capable of doing the same on the most unstable aeroplane in existence.

Underlying all of the reports from the press quoted above is the unquestioned assumption that there is direct transfer of training between the Billings device and an aeroplane.

5. A rival: the Sanders teacher (1910)

Billing was not the only inventor in 1910 to have constructed a balancing trainer which relied on the wind to produce disturbances. The Sanders Teacher also operated on this principle, but 30 in this case the trainer was constructed from standard aeroplane parts. The picture below

30 Dorothy M. Haward, “The Sanders Teacher”, Flight, 10 December 1910, pp.1006, 1007; The Aero, 14 December 1910, pp.474, 475.

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31 shows the Teacher, which bears a strong resemblance to the Sanders ‘Type 2’ aeroplane. In a similar manner to the Billings device, a universal mounting allowed movement in three axes. Lateral movement was constrained by rubber bands in the support. The whole structure, including the mounting joint, was free to rotate on the base, the rudder being used to keep the trainer facing into the wind.

Figure 9 The Sanders Teacher (Flight, 10 December 1910)

Naval Captain Haydn Arnold Sanders and his younger brother Hampden had formed the London Aeroplane and Aerial Navigation Company in Croydon in 1909. The trainer was based on their second aeroplane design. This was built and tested in Beccles, Suffolk, where they had transferred their construction and testing activities. Here they based their second enterprise, The Sanders Aeroplane Company. Test flying started in the spring of 1911. The date of the Flight and Aero articles suggests that the trainer was constructed during the development and ground testing phase of the aeroplane, with the training use possibly being a by-product, possibly influenced by reports of the widely-publicised Brooklands device.

This machine was claimed in the articles written by Dorothy Haward to be more effective than the Billing-style ‘balancer’ devices:

Now there is a tendency to design such an apparatus merely for purposes of balance and without any real resemblance to an actual aeroplane, while the very balance is so exaggerated that the pupil is placed under conditions that are in no way so arduous in free flight.

31 British Patent 12,195 of1910; Improvements in Flying Machines. Application Date: 18 May 1910. Inventors: Hampden Sanders, Haydn Sanders.

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She added: The “Ladybird,” as she is familiarly called, is not a freak machine to teach one how to keep one’s balance under conditions that even a tight-rope walker might not have to face, but is constructed as far as possible like an actual aeroplane, and the niceties of balance are not carried to an impossible extreme. The wind acts upon it almost as in free flight. Certainly the Sanders Teacher would have been less sensitive than the Billings Oscillator due to its greater inertia. On the other hand, stronger winds would have been required for it to function. Interestingly, a quite different kind of advantage was claimed for this device: one could first buy half an aeroplane set up to make a teacher, practise on this, and later buy the rest of the aeroplane when there would supposedly be less risk of crashing it on the first flight.

All of the important features and advantages of the Sanders device were covered by the claims of the Billing Patent, which was accepted by the Patent Office in July 1911. It is not known whether Billing made any attempt to protect the rights to his invention. There is no question that the Sanders brothers would have been well aware of the Billing device owing to the numerous pictures and reports in the aviation press.

Despite the Sanders Teacher being well publicised (for example in Aircraft, and Scientific American in 1911), no more was heard of it and it suffered the fate of the Sanders firm, which went out of business by 1913.

6. The Wright’s balancer (1910)

Orville Wright is said to have improvised a balancer at the Wright training school in 32 Montgomery, Alabama in March 1910. On days when strong winds prevented flying, Wright had the idea to use them to drive a static flyer mounted on the tracks normally used for taking off. With this arrangement the students could practise using the control levers to warp the wings and operate the elevators.

The Wrights further developed this method at their school in Dayton. Here a Flyer was mounted indoors on a trestle. The warping lever was connected to a board which engaged a

32 Jerome A Ennels, ‘The “Wright Stuff”: Pilot Training at America’s first Civilian Flying School,’ Air Power History, Vol.49, No.4. Winter 2002, pp.22-31.

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33 moving belt and tilted the flyer in the correct sense. Marjorie Stinson, a pupil at the Wright 34 school in 1911, was a user. She wrote:

At the factory, the Wright Company has provided a balancing machine to save flying time on the warp control. A real plane is balanced upon a wooden horse and an electric motor enters into the scheme. I had 20 minutes practice on it today and expect to do more tomorrow.

It seems, though, that the Wrights were not really wholehearted in their use of these methods. 35 It was reported in Aeronautics in 1911 that:

The Wright Company believes that this [a flying machine with dual controls] is a practical way to learn to learn to fly and much more effective than the ground training and special device training used by some of the French schools.

7. The Billing Trainer at Farnborough in 1911

Billing’s Oscillator was demonstrated at Farnborough when the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics held its 22nd Meeting at the Army Aircraft Factory there on 9 May 1911. During 36 the day the Committee were shown the work in progress at the establishment. This included an opportunity for the members to try out a Billing Trainer, which had presumably been purchased by the Factory. The photographs of the event, shown here as Figures 10a and 10b, were taken by Mervyn O’Gorman, Superintendent of the Army Aircraft Factory.

33 H. H. Arnold, Global Mission, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1949, pp.17-19; Sherwood Harris, The First to Fly: Aviation’s Pioneer Days. New York: Simon & Schuster/Macmillan, /London, 1970, pp.159-161. 34 Marjorie Stinson, ‘The Diary of a Country Girl at Flying School’, Aeronautics (USA), Vol.12, No.2, February 1928, pp.168, 169, 296, 297. 35 ‘Wright Training School’, Aeronautics (USA), Vol.8, No.2, February 1911, p.66. 36 The National Archives, DSIR 22/1

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Figure 10a F. J. Selby (Secretary, Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) on the Trainer at Farnborough (Science Museum)

Figure 10b Dr R. T. Glazebrook (Chairman, Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) on the Trainer at Farnborough (Science Museum)

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The Annual Technical Report of the Committee makes no mention of the demonstration. It was no doubt little more than a diversion from the more serious scientific topics they had come to discuss.

8. A Billing Trainer at Barrow

37 The Aero in June 1911 contained a report on ‘Naval Aeronautical Work’ that stated:

One enterprising officer at his own cost went to Brooklands to qualify, till damage to his machine brought his resources to an end. Then some officers combined to purchase a “teacher,” which is in effect a skeleton aeroplane mounted on a pivot. When placed head to wind it rocks and sways on this pivot, but can be balanced by the action of the planes manipulated by the pupil as an actual machine. The officer and men appointed to navigate the airship under construction at Barrow had been waiting 2 years and needed an outlet.

The airship under construction was of course the ill-fated ‘Mayfly’. In July 1911 The 38 Illustrated London News also published a report from Barrow-in-Furness. The artist’s impression in Figure 11 shows the trainer which the men purchased, behind which is the airship shed. The text below the picture reads: It is well known that the Admiralty are averse to spending money on aeroplanes: dirigibles of the type of the naval air-ship are in favour with the powers that rule the sea from Whitehall. But in the Service itself it is different. The man-o’-war’s man is specially keen on the heavier-than-air type, and our illustration shows how far he will go to gratify his desires in this direction. Some of the bluejackets told off to man the naval air-ship at Barrow have purchased for themselves a machine designed to instruct would-be aviators. It is a skeleton framework representing an aeroplane, and is balanced on a pivot. A fresh breeze makes it work and it sets off rocking and swinging, the motion being counteracted by the planes. The pupils learn by practising to make the machine keep steady, and in the above Illustration we see Jack having a lesson.

Assuming the picture is an accurate representation, the trainer differs from the Brooklands one. The main structural differences between this device and Billing’s first design are the lack of a front plane, a rudder, and the use of what appears to be metal tubing rather than

37 ‘Naval Aeronautical Work’, The Aero, June 1911, p.65. 38 ‘Jack goes Aloft – New Style’, The Illustrated London News, 29 July 1911, p.201. (See also: Popular Mechanics, October 1911, p.498).

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39 The illustration was ‘drawn by H. W. Koekkoek from sketches by a naval correspondent’. Possibly the original sketches ‘by a naval correspondent’ were not very detailed and the artist applied some imagination?

Figure 11 Billing Oscillator at Barrow Illustrated London News, 29 July 1911

39 Dutch artist H. W. Koekkoek (1867-1929) was a prolific painter and illustrator.

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9. Billing’s Other Projects at Brooklands, 1911-1913

In November 1910 Billing acquired C. A. Moreing’s discarded Voisin biplane. By January 1911 he had rebuilt it, retaining only the Voisin wings, and it was flying again, equipped with a 40 h.p. E.N.V. ‘D’ engine. Figure 12 shows the machine in its original state; the fuselage was later covered with fabric. The Billing biplane was known at Brooklands as the ‘Ouseley Bird’ or ‘Oozely Bird’, apparently because of the howling sound made by the wind passing through its radiators. A description of some of the more interesting constructional details was 40 given in The Aero. Very few tractor biplanes had been built before this time; Billing’s design has been considered as quite advanced for 1910.

Figure 12 Mr. Percival in the pilot’s seat of the Billing biplane at Brooklands, on which he has just obtained his pilot’s certificate (Flight, August 5 1911 & Brooklands Archive)

N. S. Percival had learnt to fly on the Billing biplane and gained his Royal Aero Club certificate in August 1911. He went on to open his own flying school at Brooklands in September, as already mentioned. The Billing machine was further rebuilt for Percival later in 1911 and a more powerful engine was fitted. It was now no longer the ‘Oozely Bird’, since 41 its howl had now been reduced to a ‘gentle coo’. In October 1911 the biplane was badly damaged after a crash after running out of petrol over the Brooklands sewage farm. After an amicable split with Billing, Percival went on to build a new biplane, using parts of the original, which he named Parseval I.

40 The Aero, 15 February 1911, p.128 41 The Aeroplane, 3 August 1911, p.208

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Billing was assisted with engineering work on the ‘Oozely Bird’ by Percy Maxwell-Muller (1880-1946), who had also come to Brooklands in 1910 with Macfie. Maxwell-Muller continued to work with Percival and others at Brooklands. He later joined Vickers, eventually becoming General Manager.42

In the latter part of 1911 Billing was in charge of the Deperdussin School at Brooklands, having taken over from Gordon Bell. The Aeroplane reported in 1912 that: ‘[Billing] is engaged in designing and making floats, which are to be put on to one of the 35 h.p. machines. It has not yet been decided where the machine is to be tried, but it is expected to have her ready for trials in about a month’s time.’ 43 Shortly after this it was announced that the Deperdussin School was now in charge of Mr. H. Petre. 44 There do not seem to any more reports of Billing’s activities at Brooklands.

Billing is perhaps best known as the proprietor, together with his wife Ada, of the Blue Bird restaurant at Brooklands. On their arrival the Billings converted the shed once occupied by Paulhan’s Farman biplane into a café. It soon became the informal clubhouse for the flying community at Brooklands.

Turner’s 1927 book gives a taste of the atmosphere: 45

The “Blue Bird” was the aerodrome restaurant, over which Mrs Billing presided. There gathered weary pilots (who in many cases were their own mechanics), advisors of all kinds, theorists, and various odds and ends, at lunch and tea-time discussing their experiences, their projects, and ways and means. On hot days in the summer the “Blue Bird” was infested with wasps, and “intrepid airmen” to use a very irritating cliché of the popular press, would arm themselves with petrol syringes. Jam attracted the wasps, and the jam dishes were accordingly the targets for streams of petrol. The dead or sleeping wasps were picked out, and after a few minutes the jam seemed to taste little the worse to hungry men!

The story is sometimes repeated in histories of Brooklands that the Billings had two glamorous daughters who helped out in the kitchen, and who were sometimes taken for short flights by

42 The Aeroplane, 22 March 1946, p.334 (obituary of P. Maxwell-Muller by C. G. Grey) 43 The Aeroplane, 11 January 1912, p.36 44 The Aeroplane, 8 February 1912, p.132 45 Turner, p.26.

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46 admirers. In fact these two girls could not have been the Billings’ daughters; their only child, Louisa, was born in 1904. The clue to who these girls were can be found in the 1911 census. The Billing family were living in a house named Woodland in Byfleet Road 47 near the aerodrome. Living with the Billings were four servants. Of these, Rose Hughes, aged 16, and Fanny Hubbard, aged 18, were probably the two ‘daughters’. Rose’s occupation is recorded as ‘waitress’ and Fanny’s as ‘kitchen maid’. These girls were most likely the staff of the Blue Bird.

Billing left Brooklands and returned to London in 1913 owing to failing health. At the time when Pemberton Billing famously earned his aviator’s certificate in one day at Brooklands in September 1913, Eardley Billing was reported as ‘late of the Blue Bird.’ 48

Eardley Billing died at the age of 42 on 19 November 1915 in the Essex and Colchester 49 Asylum, to where he had been moved from London.

After his death C. G. Grey wrote in The Aeroplane: 50

In 1914 (it was actually 1913) Mr Billing suffered from cerebral trouble, and never returned to Brooklands afterwards, but Mrs Billing carried on the Blue Bird till it was taken over by the Army. Mrs Billing is now staying at 190 Croxted Road, West Dulwich, and as she is left without means she is anxious to find work. If any manufacturer wants anyone to run a big works canteen efficiently, or to undertake any position of trust, Mrs Billing’s unusual capability fits her for such a position. Incidentally, certain aviators, some of them officers in the Flying Services, who still owe her money on account of Blue Bird debts might avail themselves of this occasion to settle their liability.

The Blue Bird became the Officer’s Mess, with Ada Billing initially left in charge. It was destroyed by fire in 1917.

46 For example in Johnson 47 Now called Brooklands Road 48 The Aeroplane, Vol.5, 1913, p.362; P. Jarrett, ‘A Brevet before Breakfast’, Aeroplane Monthly, December 1977, pp.657-659. 49 Death Certificate for E.D. Billing 50 ‘A Blue Bird Memory’, The Aeroplane, November 24 1915, p.660

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10. In : Sparmann’s ‘Aiglon’

While Eardley Billing and the Sanders Brothers were developing and promoting their trainers in Britain, a very similar but more elaborate device was under development in Austria by the aircraft designer Edmund Sparmann (1888-1951). The Sparmann trainer was first described in 1911. 51 It is thus likely to have been developed at about the same time as the Sanders machine, with which it shares many features.

Figure 13 The Sparmann Trainer, ‘L’Aiglon’

Figure 14 Sparmann in his Trainer52

51 E. Sparmann, ‘Der Sparmannsche Schulapparat, HP-Fachzeitung für Automobilismus und Flugtechnik,” 5. Jahrg., Nr.46 (12 November 1911), pp.27-29 52 Oesterreichischen Flugzeitschrift, 1912, p.249

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Sparmann’s device was constructed in the form of a complete monoplane 7 metres in length and with a wingspan of 9 metres, supported by a universal joint atop a conical steel stand. Fuselage and wing spars were fabricated with steel (Mannesmann) tubing. Oversized control surfaces (wingtip ailerons, twin fore and aft rudders and elevator) were used in order to permit lateral and longitudinal control in wind speeds of 4-16 m/s. The fuselage mounting points of the ground support and of the wings could be moved in order to adjust balance and stability. 53

The device had little coverage in the non-German-language press. According to a brief report in Aeronautics this teacher was used by Sparmann in his flying school at Wiener-Neustadt, 54 near . No patent seems to have been granted for the trainer, though Sparmann was granted a number during his Vienna period for automatic stabilisation devices. After the First World War Sparmann emigrated to Sweden where he had a successful career as an aircraft designer.

11. In the USA: Beech’s Terra Tutor

This apparatus, dating from 1917, was a balancer actuated not by the natural wind but 55 artificially by four vertically ducted air currents (Figure 15). It was the student’s task to keep the machine balanced using a Deperdussin-style wheel for pitch and roll control and a rudder bar for directional control, much like the Billing device.

The inventor, Alexander Beech (1873-1940), had a remarkably varied life as soldier, inventor and aircraft designer. Born in the West Midlands of England, in 1898 he left for North America, where he signed up with the Royal Canadian Regiment, with whom he served in the Boer War. After being wounded in action he returned to England for recovery. Here in 1907 and 1908 he designed and applied for patents on fairground amusement devices. 56 In these patent applications Beech’s occupation was stated as ‘showman’.

53 Karl Seshun, ‘Der Sparmannsche Schulapparat’, Deutsche Luftfahrer-Zeitschrift, Jahrg. 17, Nr.1 (8 January 1913), pp.8, 9. 54 ‘The Sparman [sic] Teaching Machine’, Aeronautics (USA), Vol.12, No.4 (April 1913), p.142. 55 ‘The Terra Tutor’, Aviation and Aeronautical Engineering, Vol.3, No.8, 15 November 1917, p.532; ‘Learning to Fly on Jets of Air’, Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 92, No. 1, January 1918, pp.50,51 56 British Patents 21,417 of 1907, 24,416 of 1907 and 1,534 of 1908

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In 1909 he left again for North America, this time going to Chicago, where his brother lived. In 1911 he was employed as Chief Construction Engineer at the National Aeroplane Manufacturing Company of Chicago. 57 While here he designed the Beech-National Farman- style biplane, in which he gave exhibition flights around the USA. In 1916 he enlisted in the US Cavalry, in which he served until 1918.

Figure 15 The Terra Tutor

The Terra Tutor was apparently in use in 1917. According to contemporary advertisements it was installed at the training camp of Chicago-based Moler Aviation Instructors, where Beech gave flying lessons. No patent appears to have been issued for the invention, and given the very few references to this device in the press, probably only one example was ever built.

57 Scamehorn, pp.213 & 214

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The Popular Science article describing the trainer mentions an earlier French balancer which used sliding weights mounted on a crossbar. (No patent appears to have been granted for such a device).

In the 1920s Beech continued to work on amusement devices (whose inventors have often had a close relationship to flight simulation), but he also patented a variety of furniture designs for the Kroehler Manufacturing Company of Chicago, then one of the largest furniture manufacturing companies in the USA. He died in 1940 in Los Angeles, where he is buried in a military cemetery.

12. Other Balancers and use in Glider Training

The Eardley Billing machine seems not to have been widely used. The few mentions in the aviation press suggest that not many were sold. It was not taken up by the military, a cause for surprise to C. G. Grey. He wrote in The Aeroplane in 1915 that ‘it has always been a marvel to me why the machine has not been developed for use in Service Schools on windy days’. 58 Despite its advocates it was recognised by some that devices like the Oscillator had a very limited training value, as suggested by this later evaluation in The Aeroplane from 1931: 59

Probably the pioneer attempt was that made at Brooklands two or three years before the War 1914-18 when a flying machine, which consisted of a seat on a wooden cross which carried ailerons, rudder, and elevator, was balanced on a pivot at or about its Centre of Gravity and placed out in the open on a windy day. When the wind was too strong for ordinary flying the controls of this machine became operative. A pupil was installed thereon and had to balance the ailerons to keep it head to wind. This primitive arrangement, which even today has its counterparts at one or two gliding clubs, suffered from disadvantages inherent in working with a wind of more or less constant direction. You could not teach turns or banks on it, but it did teach the sense of balance. The same applies to any piece of mechanism which is hung in any mechanically generated air-stream.

58 The Aeroplane, 24 November 1915, p.660 59 The Aeroplane, Vol.40, No.11, 18 March 1931, p.481

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Whether or not this ‘sense of balance’ was a useful piloting skill was disputed. For example, Kronfeld stated in his 1932 text on gliding and soaring: 60 ‘So your sense of balance, which is your best guide on the ground, may be the very worst one when you are moving through the air’. No formal evaluation of a ‘balancer’ for pilot training has been found.

A number of similar balancing devices for elementary pilot training were devised in the 1910-1920 period, in addition to those mentioned above. Some, like the British Howell- Walters 61 and French Antoinette machines, relied on disturbances manually introduced by operators, others on the natural wind. Many improvised balancers were probably set up in this period, since one could be constructed cheaply and would provide the closest experience to piloting that most people could obtain. A 1911 letter from a reader of The Aero describes one such home-made device, 62 while in the same year at the new flying ground of the Company a ‘fixed teacher, working similar lines to the Billing Oscillator’ was installed. 63

Possibly the most sustained use the balancing method has been in glider flying training. Its first use is usually attributed to Kurt Student in in 1921. Student, a former First World War pilot and at the time aviation advisor in the Reichswehrministerium, organised gliding courses on the 64. Here he had the idea to set up biplane mounted on two crossed semi-circular wooden supports pivoted on a base and kept upright with elastic cords. This set-up, known as a Wackeltopf (‘wobble-pot’) relied on operators introducing disturbances in pitch and roll which should be followed by the student making the necessary correcting actions.65 Figure 16 shows a Wackeltopf used with a ‘Gersfeld’ biplane. 66

The method was used as the first part of a solo flying course developed by Fritz Stamer 67 (1897-1969), flying instructor at the Martens Flying School at the Wasserkuppe. The

60 Kronfeld, p.163 61 M. Bolton, ‘A Patent for a Flight Simulator’, Newcomen Links (Newcomen Society), No.232, December 2014, p.17 62 The Aero, December 1911, p.257 63 ‘A New Scottish Venture’, The Aeroplane, 8 June 1911, p.22 64 Student (1890-1978) is best known for his later role as paratroop commander during the Second World War. See Farrar-Hockley. 65 Heinz Eckhard Habermehl, ‘Der Wackeltopf’, DSMM-Post (Deutsches Segelflugmuseum mit Modelflug), No.14, 2010, p.3. 66 Riedel, p.187 67 Brinkmann & Zacher, pp.40--42

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Journal of Aeronautical History Paper 2018/06 method continued to be used in the German gliding schools in the 1920s; a brief report even appeared in the US publication Popular Mechanics in 1923.68 Stamer describes in his 1934 text how the Wackeltopf might be used in the first stage of a glider training system he had 69 developed. The device could also be set up on a windy slope, allowing it to be used without human operators, relying on strong air currents, much like the original Billing device.

Figure 16 The Gersfeld Wackeltopf in use at the Wasserkuppe (Deutsches Segelflugmuseum)

Figure 17, also from 1923, is an example of how the idea was adopted elsewhere; this shows an Austrian Wackeltopf installation.70

68 Popular Mechanics, April 1923, p.601 69 Stamer, p.47. 70 Keimel, p.11

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Figure 17 The Austrian Technische Hochschule S3 glider adapted for ground training (from Keimel 70)

Another balancer-like training device from the First World War period was the Italian Gabardini captive monoplane, illustrated in the 1919 edition of Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft.71 Pitch and roll movements were presumably facilitated mechanically, since no control surfaces are apparent.

Figure 18 The Gabardini Captive Monoplane (Janes All the World’s Aircraft, 1919)

71 Jane’s All The World’s Aircraft, 1919

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One of the most widely used German training gliders, the SG-38 Schulgleiter, could be used with a supporting trestle (‘Pendelbock’) which allowed its use as a ground trainer, as shown in Figure 18.72 It is a suspended trainer rather than a supported one.

Figure 19 An SG-38 Schulgleiter supported on a Pendelbock (Deutsches Segelflugmuseum)

The early 1950s Slingsby T.38 ‘Grasshopper’ training glider, widely used in Britain by the Air Training Corps and Combined Cadet Force, could also be set up in this way for use as a ground trainer.73 There is a fine example of a T.38 glider used in this manner, together with wind produced by fans, in the Deutsches TechnikMuseum in Berlin.74

72 Seliger, p.85 73 ‘Gliding at School’, Aeroplane Monthly, Vol. 43, No. 10, October 2015, pp.20,21 74 Seen by the author in 2009

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13. Conclusion

Many of the early flight-training-device patent specifications claimed that the devices described could also be used for amusement purposes. Billing’s certainly did. It is undoubtedly true that most of these inventions had at best minimal value in flight training, though no formal evaluation of them has been found. Until devices designed to give training in the use of instruments in blind conditions started to appear, flight simulation for training had virtually no impact, judging by the small number of simulation devices that were reported in use. Billing’s Oscillator would have been too unreliable even to have made a useful investment for a funfair operator unless it were furnished with a large fan.

Billings only received a patent for his device in Britain. The fact that he went to the expense of applying for a patent implied that he hoped to profit from his invention. Promotion was not lacking; it was exhibited, demonstrated and received several mentions in the aviation press. We can only conclude that it was never seriously considered even at the time to be a useful aid to flying training. However, it always makes an amusing picture introducing histories of flight simulation.

14. Bibliography

Brinkmann, Günter, and Zacher, Hans, Die Evolution der Segelflugzeuge; Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn, 1992.

Farrar-Hockley, A., Student, Ballantine Books, New York, 1973. Goodall, Michael H., Flying Start: Flying Schools and Clubs at Brooklands 1910-1939, Brooklands Museum Trust, Surrey, 1995. Goodall, Michael H., and Tagg, Albert E., British Aircraft Before the Great War, Schiffer Publishing, Atglen, PA, USA, 2001. Johnson, Howard, Wings Over Brooklands, Whittet Books, Weybridge, 1981. Keimel, Reinhard, Segulflug am Spitzerberg und Hundsheimer Kogel, Sutton Verlag, Erfurt, 2010. Kimberley, Damien, Coventry’s Motorcar Heritage, The History Press, Stroud, 2012. Kronfeld, Robert, Kronfeld on Gliding and Soaring, John Hamilton, London, 1932. Lewis, Peter, British Aircraft 1809-1914. Putnam, London, 1962. Penrose, Harald, British Aviation: The Pioneer Years, Putnam, London, 1967.

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Pixton, Stella, Howard Pixton: Test Pilot and Pioneer Aviator, Pen and Sword, Barnsley, 2014. Riedel, Peter, Start in den Wind: Erlebte Rhöngeschichte 1911-1926, Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart, 1986. Scamehorn, Howard L., Balloons to Jets: A Century of Aeronautics in Illinois, 1855-1955, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale & Edwardsville, 2000. (Originally published in 1957.) Seliger, Peter F., Segelflugzeug-Geschichten: Die Gleit- und Segelflugzeuge des Deutschen Segelflugmuseums, Deutsches Segelflugmuseum, Stiftung, 2004 Smith, Graham, Essex and its Race for the Skies, Countryside Books, Newbury, 2007.

Smith, Ron, British Built Aircraft - Greater London. Tempus, Stroud, 2002. Smith, Ron, British Built Aircraft - Vol. 3, South East England, Tempus, Stroud, 2004. Smith, Ron, British Built Aircraft - Vol. 4, Central & Eastern England, Tempus, Stroud, 2004. Stamer, Fritz, Gleit- und Segelflugschulung, Volckmann, Berlin, 1934. Stoney, Barbara, Twentieth Century Maverick, Bank House Books, East Grinstead, 2004. Turner, Charles C., The Old Flying Days, Sampson Low, Marson, London, 1927. Venables, David, Brooklands: The Official Centenary History. Haynes Publishing, Yeovil, 2007. Wheeler, Allen H., Building Aeroplanes for ‘Those Magnificent Men’, G.T. Foulis, London, 1965.

Acknowledgements

I would like acknowledge the following people who have helped with information and advice: The late John Bagley of the Science Museum, who provided the pictures of the Billing Trainer at Farnborough, as well as giving useful suggestions when I first started researching flight simulation history; John Rolfe, for encouragement and collaboration over many years; the staff at Bristol Central Library, the Science Museum Library, The National Archives, and especially at the National Aerospace Library, who were most helpful; John Pulford, of Brooklands Museum, for help with photographs. It is believed that all the illustrations in this paper are freely available in the public domain, and that any copyrights have expired.

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The Author

Doctor Martin Bolton graduated in Electrical Engineering from Imperial College in 1971. After a period working on power system simulators as a research assistant at Imperial College he joined Redifon Flight Simulation in Crawley in 1974. During his time at the company he gained an external D. Phil degree from the University of Sussex for work on computer image generation. He was the principal author of the opening historical paper at the RAeS ‘50 Years of Flight Simulation’ conference in 1979. After Redifon, and a period working on spacecraft attitude control systems at Dynamics Group in Bristol, he became a Senior Lecturer in Microelectronics at Bristol University. He re-entered industry in 1990, working on integrated circuit systems design at Inmos/STMicroelectronics in Bristol and Grenoble. Since retirement he has continued with historical research and writing.

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