THE IRISH have blazed a trail through aviation history. The Ulster Aviation Society's new exhibition highlights the extraordinary lives of some of these pioneers of flight, writes Claire O'Connell.
It's not always easy being stuck out on the edge of Europe. But there are some advantages. Thanks to our location and a handful of plucky pioneers, Ireland played a crucial role in the development of aviation. From the early days of barely lifting off the ground in aircraft of calico and timber to the post-war glitz of stunt shows and record-setting long haul flights, the Irish have blazed a trail through aviation history.
It's a contribution that the Ulster Aviation Society is striving to preserve. Now celebrating its 40th year, the organisation has built up a wealth of knowledge about flight in Ireland, and will this week launch an exhibition at Belfast's Central Library highlighting the group's activities.
"We are a society for enthusiasts, but enthusiasm takes many forms, so we are a pretty broad church," says chairman Ernie Cromie as he opens the padlock on the society's vast hangar at the former military airfield in Long Kesh, in the shadow of the former Maze prison. The society moved its collection of salvaged, bought or received aircraft there two years ago, and hopes to eventually offer public access as part of the Maze area's proposed redevelopment.
It's a fitting site for flight enthusiasts. The prosperous town of Hillsborough, the cradle of aviation in Ireland, lies a little more than a mile away. It was here that Harry Ferguson officially became the first person in Ireland to achieve powered flight when his self-built monoplane, the Ferguson Flyer, took off from snowy ground at Hillsborough on New year's eve in 1909.
HOT ON FERGUSON'S heels was Lilian Bland, who the following year became the first woman in the world to design, build and fly her own plane. A sports journalist and photographer, she was unconventional and wore trousers, hunted and smoked.
Like Ferguson she was inspired by visiting Britain's first airshow in Blackpool in 1909, and when her uncle sent her a postcard of Louis Blériot flying across the English Channel the same year she decided to build her own plane in a workhouse at the back of her family estate.
But even though Bland was an amateur engineer, hers was no slipshod attempt.
She meticulously researched the materials and dimensions of other aircraft, assembling and testing her own biplane from spruce, bamboo, wire and calico in a scientific way.
In early 1910 she enlisted several of the local constabulary to help tether her glider, the Mayfly, as she tested its mettle on Antrim's Carnmoney Hill. But the biplane was surprisingly keen to get airborne, and took off with four stalwart and rather startled policemen hanging on to it.
Charged by her success, Bland fitted an engine in the Mayfly and later that year piloted the powered craft, which she recorded triumphantly in a letter to Flight magazine entitled "I have flown!".
Early pilots were exceptionally courageous, notes Guy Warner, a long-time member of the Ulster Aviation Society. "They were very brave, but in order not to break their necks they had to be sensible. They weren't just complete daredevils. They had to know to a certain extent what they were doing." And many, including Ferguson, walked away from crashes relatively unscathed.
"The aircraft weren't flying too high, weren't flying too fast and you could put them down in a field and hope for the best," says Warner. "If you remembered to switch the motor off before you hit the ground, generally speaking you'd be alright. Then, provided you weren't injured, you would just clamber out and run."
But Bland's father was less certain, and believed his daughter would be seriously hurt or killed in an aircraft, so he convinced her to take an interest in cars. She became a Ford dealer in Belfast before moving to Canada in 1912. Neither did Ferguson make much of a contribution to flight in the longer term, and his name went on to become more famous in relation to tractors.
Either way, the impact of any individual pioneer on early aviation technology was dwarfed by what came next. "Before the first World War the airplane was essentially a toy, but war changed it completely, to being a killing machine," says Warner. "The development of the airplane's capabilities from 1914 to 1918 was quite astounding." When the war ended, there were plenty of aircraft and people trained to build and fly them. The logical step was to build up civil aviation transport, but aircraft at the time had been designed to carry bombs, not people, and it was only in the 1930s that commercially viable civil airplanes took off, explains Warner.
The public also needed to see aircraft as machines of transport rather than war, and throughout the 1920s, exciting air shows helped build "air-mindedness" among the masses. "At that stage it was almost like showbiz," says Warner. "It was the era of the pilot as a celebrity of almost film-star status. They would be doing spectacular flights, usually in light aircraft and billed as against the odds or setting records." And chief among the glamorous daredevils was Limerick woman Lady Mary Heath, who 80 years ago became the first person to fly solo between Cape Town and London in an open cockpit plane [ see panel].
Meanwhile, the push towards commercially viable flights continued, and Ireland was a perfect testbed for trialling routes over the sea with civilian-friendly designs.
"The potentially moneymaking routes were ones that went over water, because it would be quicker than going by boat," says Warner. "So the strip of water between Ireland and England was extremely important." Ireland's geography also meant it was a pivotal jumping-off and reception point for pioneering long-haul flights. In 1928 the German-owned Bremen made the first east-west flight over the Atlantic, leaving from Baldonnel with Irish navigator Maj James Fitzmaurice on board. And 10 years later, the feted Douglas "Wrongway" Corrigan took off in New York destined for California, but ended up in Baldonnel instead, supposedly due to adverse weather and a mistaken compass reading.
IN THE LATE 1930s the "flying boat" base at Foynes on the Shannon estuary emerged as the gateway to and from Europe for north Atlantic flights, and was replaced by a landplane facility at nearby Rineanna (now Shannon Airport) in 1945.
But for Ulster the big hitter was Shorts, which first set up camp in Belfast in 1936. Global conflict was brewing once again and the company relocated part of its operation from England to move further out of range of bomb attacks, says Warner.
Wartime provided a boom for the manufacturing plant in Belfast. The company slumped in the 1950s and 1960s, but Sir Phil Foreman hauled it up and made it a world leader once again, and the Belfast-based operation helped many airlines get off the ground.
"A lot of today's airlines cut their teeth on the [ Shorts] 330 and 360, they were cheap and cheerful and easy to maintain and operate," says Warner. "If you couldn't make a profit on a route with the 330 there was not a profit to be made."
The Ulster Aviation Society will run a six-week long exhibition celebrating its activities from March 14th, at Belfast's Central Library. The society will also launch the book Shorts - the Foreman Years, by Guy Warner, this week