by Fred Lindsley
Extracted from Western Flyer newsletter August 1992
Continuing his memories of air circuses in the 1930’s, in his previous and this article, Fred recalls a pair of small aircraft suggesting there is little that is really new in the present day ultralight category.
The Flying Flea
Those readers who have copies of Airsport for May/June 1984 can skip this bit of ancient history. On pages 6 and 7 of that issue I wrote about the Flying Flea but with, I hope, some technical relevance to canards in general. So, with a memory eight years older, this recollection will attempt to associate this rather unique aircraft with the air circus background in 1936.
The Flying Flea, like the Heath Parasol and the Pietenpol Aircamper, and possibly more so, was one of the early cult aircraft. It was specifically dreamed up for amateur construction, promised the freedom of the skies for a modest cost, and promoted a minor boom in the supply of add-on accessories, including engines.
If it had been subjected to a bit more conventional aircraft engineering wisdom, it could well have been successful at what it promised. All things to all men without costing an arm and a leg and an accident report. It owed its parenthood to Henri Mignet (1884 – 1965) who was what we would today call an electronics engineer (he designed radio valves) whose interest in aviation was stimulated when he visited England and saw the gliding competition of 1922. Which was won by another Frenchman, Maneyrol, flying a tandem wing glider.
From that time onwards Mignet designed and built a series of largely unsuccessful light aircraft. None were completely conventional: the HM7 was a helicopter. Apparent success came with his HM14 which was first flown in 1933. He also wrote a book, the title translating to “The Sport of the Air” which, including its English version, became a bestseller.
A British built HM14 flew in July 1935 and was significant for two reasons. Firstly, because it installed the prototype of the 31 HP Ford Ten car engine conversions developed by Sir John Carden (who was the designer of military tanks for Vickers). This conversion gave 31 HP at 3600 rpm for a quoted dry weight (less oil, radiator, water and plumbing) of 131 lb. My guess is that the installed power plant was about 170 lb. Secondly, because it was the first aircraft to be issued with the newly introduced British Permit to Fly. Under this legislation aircraft were allowed to fly without a full Certificate of Airworthiness, providing they were flown only for sporting purposes and insured against third party risk.
At this point, the now essential factor for arousing mass enthusiasm entered the picture. The Daily Express newspaper embarked on a programme of promoting aviation in Great Britain. Its proprietor, Lord Beaverbrook (who later became Minister for Aircraft Production in WWII), had ordered a twin-engined high speed airliner. This aircraft, the Bristol 142, was named the ‘Britain First’ and first flew in April 1935. Only one was built but a military conversion, the Bristol 142M, was later made in some numbers. As the Bristol Blenheim bomber, 6260 were built.
The Daily Express, shrewdly sensing that high speed airliners were perhaps remote from utilisation by the general public in 1935, equally shrewdly applied the second string to their bow. They would promote aviation for the masses. Noting enthusiasm for the HM14 in France they changed the French name of ‘Pou de Ciel’ (Louse of the Sky) to the alliterative and perhaps more acceptable “Flying Flea”ÂÂ.
Response to the Daily Express promotion was sensational. In August 1935 the newspaper invited Mignet to give demonstrations in Britain. They also subsidised some British design conversion by the Baynes Company who were building Scud sailplanes.
By April 1936, when the air display tour commenced, Flying Flea fever was at a peak. Nearly 100 had been registered and a few of them had flown. Additionally there were many more being built without official sanction. By the same anybody-can-do-it Real Practical Men who then, as now, produced only the sowing of years of subsequent suspicion in official bureaucratic minds.
All this excitement benefited the air circus. Spectators (and potential joy-riders) came in masses to see this modem marvel which, by popular repute, could be built by anybody “for about 100 pounds” – about A$220 at today’s rate of exchange. Our British built Flying Flea, with a Carden-Ford engine conversion, was the headlining star of the 1936 air circus. It was flown by a newcomer to the air display, another whimsical Welshman, Idwal Jones, who had previously spent years flying assorted RAF aircraft around the Middle East. Jonah, as he was invariably known, also flew the red and white chequered Tiger Moth in displays of inverted flying and doing the flour bombing in the comedy items. He also did the joy-riding in our second three engined Airspeed Ferry G-ACFB.
Jonah’s opinion of the Flying Flea was the reverse of bubbling ecstasy and verged on mistrust. He gave two displays every day. Indifferent acceleration made take-offs prolonged, and the angle of climb closely approached the limits for billiard table installation, and all tums were done with extremely modest banking. The landing run, although lacking brakes, was surprisingly short.
The Flea’s companion demonstrator of flying for everybody, The BAC Drone, was sponsored only via the public address system by National Benzol petrol and Wakefield Castrol Oil. But the Flying Flea was sponsored by a large confectionery company which made Bassetts Liquorice Allsorts. On the loudspeakers it was always related to ‘Bertie Bassett’. To this end, the fuselage had been painted to show, in large scale, the highly coloured various ‘allsorts’ available in that brand of lolly. To add realism this had been done in relief and the paint in places was nearly 1/8 inch (3mm) thick. It would not have been surprising if careful analysis had revealed that the paint weighed as much as the rest of the admittedly compact wooden fuselage structure.
The Flying Flea was a two control aircraft. There was a control column but no rudder pedals. Fore and aft movement of the stick altered the incidence of the front wing which pivoted at about the 20% chord position. Sideways movement of the stick operated the rudder and a steerable tailwheel. There were no ailerons and banking was supposed to be automatic, courtesy of the curved dihedral angle on both wings.
M. Mignet’s familiarity with oscillating radio valves apparently failed to induce the parallel thinking that wings just might have oscillating characteristics too. Fleas built to the French drawings pulled the front wing down by cables, relying on providence and an uncertain centre-of-pressure to move the wing in the opposite direction. The cables had peculiar eye splices. Where today there might be a Nicropress sleeve, there was about two inches of thin walled copper tube. This was first squeezed flat and then twisted like an Archimedian drill. What about bi- metallic corrosion you might say? Mve la difference! Our Flying Flea was more inspiring, being one of the very few professionally built in Great Britain.
Due to the immense publicity associated with the Flying Flea there would appear, at a good many display sites, local talent who had trucked in their wonder machines, usually a fair way from completion. Men with cloth caps and broad accents, not always content with failing to occupy pride of place on the flight line. Attended by local photographers and, like the first Lord of the Admiralty in HMS Pinafore, accompanied by all their sisters and cousins (to be reckoned up in dozens), and their aunts.
On rare occasions, should circus routine or a lull permit, some of these flying machines would be allowed an opportunity of local hero making good. There were some fast taxying mishaps, tipping on the nose and breaking propellers, or entanglement with boundary fences and hedges. I have no recollection of any of these enterprises actually flying.
For road transport the Flea and the Wolf sailplane had to share a Bedford semi-trailer. Stowing and securing the dismantled components without somebody being trapped required a precise and undeviating order of doing things. The unpredictable nature of ramps on uneven ground soon led to their abandonment. It was quicker and less fraught to manhandle up to, or off the floor of the semi. Loading the Flea fuselage, with the Ford engine and its paint, was a wearying pastime at the end of a day which may have started at dawn.
An associated episode remains embedded in the memory for a special reason. During an evening dismantling, a too-enthusiastic helper pulled on the Flea’s propeller and broke off one of the blades. I think it was a Saturday but the upshot was that despite frenzied enquiries there was no hope of getting a replacement for the next day, when the display was scheduled to travel to Cardiff for a 2pm first show.
This caused a managerial crisis. There was still some grounds for believing that the English were not well loved in the land of leeks, due to the treatment of Welsh miners by the British during the still well-remembered General Strike of 1926. The worst case scenario envisaged by management was that the citizens of Cardiff, deprived of the promised Flying Flea spectacle, might be unpleasantly angry. Or, the ultimate catastrophe, fail to spend any money on joy-riding. A crisis indeed.
The chief Engineer on the 1936 air display, Eric Richardson, had for about four years been a brusque but benevolent instructor to my learning progress, with many a sharp but deserved word to ensure that I not only did things properly, but understood the reason why. He also knew well my interest in model aeroplanes, nearly all rubber powered duration models in those days. Some years previously I had reached the conclusion that, with such models, the sophistication of low speed aerodynamics was not even fractionally as important as sticking the best propeller on the front. Designing and carving five different propellers for the same model was par for the course.
Thus it came about that Eric located a workshop and a big enough surface plate. The romance of aviation opened a lot of friendly doors in that era. He then drove off to make the rounds of local timber merchants enjoying their Saturday evening, while I made cardboard section templates, from the broken prop and resisted the temptation of a do-it-yourself re-design.
Eric returned with a large enough block of black walnut which, inevitably, would not balance precisely in the middle. Sawing it lengthwise in two and turning one piece end to end was out of the question, because no glue was going to be safe by the deadline next day. Working through the night turned it into a presentable prop. Balance was achieved by drilling four deep 1/4inch holes in the back of the prop, suspending the prop on a spike into a countersunk hole in a made-for-the-job dummy backplate and then balancing it till it stayed level on the spike. The balancing was done by packing the holes as required with split shot from a fishing tackle supplier and the beeswax we used on thread when doing sewing repairs. A car was waiting to take the propeller and weary wood butchers to Cardiff.
That propeller, still unvarnished, got Idwal Jones airborne at Cardiff, and a few days elsewhere until a replacement prop and a spare came by passenger train. The reason for its removal deserves explanation. Every now and then we would get surprise visits from the Air Ministry’s AID (the surveyors of that day). Although the Flying Flea operated only on a Permit to Fly, over our dead bodies would we give AID an opportunity of detecting anything without a Release Note on any sort of aircraft. Once their suspicions were aroused they might be popping up about every two weeks, getting in the way of everybody who was trying to maintain the standards AID were paid to enforce. Let that be a cautionary lesson to some present day amateur builders.
There were some remote Flying Flea fatalities during the earlier part of the 1936 display tour. Late April in Scotland and two more in May, both the latter involving very experienced RAF officers. One of whom was actually test flying a Flea on behalf of the Air League. This ill-wind publicity, conversely, proved a good crowd drawer for the air circus business. In Europe, in just 12 months, there were 11 Flying Flea fatalities, all resulting from diving into the ground apparently out-of control.
Not long after the middle of the display season, and some time before the Fleas were officially grounded in Great Britain, the word got around and our Flea, much to Idwal Jones relief, ceased to fly. It spent the rest of the season in a comedy routine where Martin Hearn and I were involved in taxying it. It sometimes needed an awful lot of throttle if the steering tailwheel sank into soft ground, but slow taxying could be stopped quite quickly by reaching out and grasping a tyre, although this could be hard on the hands.
All the taxying produced many more repeats of a tedious job which previously had been merely a minor nuisance. Overheating very quickly occurred when the low nose radiator became blocked by bits of high grass, hemlock and buttercups, which couldn’t be cleared even with surreptitious use of the store van’s oxygen cylinder. Only tedious poking from the back with a wire would work. It was nice to meet fellow model aircraft enthusiasts quite happy to plot this educational experience on their learning curve.
What caused the Flying Fleas to dive into the ground? The thing that flies aeroplanes. Aerodynamics. The dismaying news is that pilots do not fly aircraft, and never have. They merely steer aircraft in three dimensions. Those who doubt this truth, and have already forgotten the recent Gulf War, should note that in 1992 there are 41 different type of UAV’s (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) in production. One, with a Lycoming engine, has a duration of 55 hours. Another recent one, not yet in production, has a wingspan of 200 feet (61m). And one of the earlier ones, the de Havilland Queen Bee, was operational way back in the days of the air circuses.
