Whilst Wisley was still being used by Vickers-Armstrong for flight testing their latest aircraft flown in from Weybridge, the Royal Aeronautical Society held a couple of Garden Parties there for their members on the 15th July 1956 and also the 15th September 1957. A good number of visitors attended, including many by air and on both occaisions an air display was held as well as a static exhibition of the Nash Collection of historic aircraft. I
managed to attend both events although not having any ticket as a young teenager just left school, I opted to view the aerial activities from the south side of the airfield, where access to higher groung near to the NDB enabled
free access. During the events held on one of the above dates, there
was an air race which took place, involving about a dozen or so light aircraft
including as far as I remember the Percival Mew Gull G-AEXT, Comper Swift
G-ABUS and Miles Hawk Major G-ADMW amongst other types, which flew towards the Cobham direction, then probably part of Weybridge and Byfleet before returning to Wisley. The pilots would have made a couple of circuits at least, but although I have tried to find any report of this in the Society’s journal of the time, there appears to be no report either in Flight Global Archives. Does anyone have any knowledge of which date this could have been, considering the fact that it could have happened at a later date possibly ?
Both the 1956/7 dates achieved a good gathering of light aircraft from both the U.K. and abroad, some of which can be viewed on the Air Britain Photographic website http://www.abpic.co.uk Just type in Wisley against “keyword” and key in- location against “In all Fields” 🙂
By: AEROFOIL - 30th October 2009 at 11:34
Air Race at Wisley Airfield
Having copies of the RAeS journal reports for the above dates, it seems that my idea that an air race took place here at all may well be shot down in flames, since it is inconceivable that both the RAeS and the Flight Magazine would have omitted such an event. Since my viewpoint on the southern side of the airfield was at least half a mile to a mile from all the Garden Party activities, I could only see the aircraft when they took off in the distance before making a sharp turn over Ockham Common. Also the loud speaker system could not be interpreted at all. In all intents and purposes, the sequence of types of different aircraft appearing on the same circuit several times gave the appearance of an air race being conducted . However reading between the lines of the 1957 journal, there is a case that this was only individual demonstrations by the pilots of the older aircraft doing fast and slow passes in front of the spectators, before joining the aforementioned circuit in force. This would have been fairly low level over Ockham Common, outlying Wisley, Pyrford and Ripley before landing west to east presumably.
By: AEROFOIL - 19th October 2009 at 14:02
Air Race at Wisley Airfield
Thanks, however Brooklands Museum have been unable to trace this event.
It just seems possible that the RAeS did not have enough space in their journal to record this, but also Flight Global Archive have no reference to it either. I have looked under GAPAN (Guild of Pilots and Navigators) and the RAeC (Royal Aero Club) in Google search to see if anything showed, but a pointblank answer, so am hoping that perhaps someone who attended the dates in question might provide an answer. After all this was a major garden party at the time, the 1957 event was attended by some 4,600 people
including nearly 550 children and 53 light aircraft.
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October 18, 2009 at 2:14 pm