In Nov 1916 aviator Geoffrey Dorman became the first flier to land at Tangmere and recommended that the field in which he had executed a forced-landing in his F.E.2b would make an excellent airfield. The rest is history, as they say!
Two questions;
Does anybody know where the prop from Dorman’s F.E.2b is today? It used to hand in the Officer’s Mess until the station closed in 1970.
Second, can anybody lead me to a source of a photo of Dorman? He became quite a well known aviation correspondent and writer in the 1950s. There must be a picture of him out there somewhere!
By: Arabella-Cox - 5th December 2010 at 22:02
What a star!
By: kev35 - 5th December 2010 at 22:01
Andy.
I now have a photograph as well. emailing it to you when I’ve just finished checking some other stuff.
Regards,
kev35
By: kev35 - 5th December 2010 at 21:40
Andy.
PM me an email address and I’ll send you something. I can’t find the photo for his aviator’s certificate so I suspect there wasn’t one or it was lost.
Edited to add: There are several references to the award of his ticket on 2nd June 1915 on the internet, including one from Flight Global.
regards,
kev35
By: Arabella-Cox - 5th December 2010 at 21:31
Kev
Thats interesting, and many thanks indeed.
Am I right in believing that the RAFM hold photos from the aviators certificates, do you (or anybody else!) know?
PS – If he made the forced landing at Tangmere on 19 Nov 1916 whilst qualifying for his wings how is it, I wonder, that his certificate shows 2 June 1915?
By: kev35 - 5th December 2010 at 21:15
Andy.
No photograph yet but this may or may not be of interest to you.
According to his Royal Aero Club Aviator’s certificate (Number 1300), geoffrey Charles Herbert Dorman was born on the 7th July 1894 in London. A Second Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers, he gained his ‘ticket’ at the Military School, Shoreham on the 2nd June 1915 on a Maurice Farman Biplane.
Regards,
kev35
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December 5, 2010 at 8:46 pm