WW1 Aviation by Norman Franks (Cooden Beach Hotel)

Norman Franks, historian and author of over 120 books on World War 1 aviation, was the guest speaker at Senlac Rotary’s meeting on 3^rdAugust. Norman told us that during his researches he had come across a reference to WW1 pilots who had died between 1918 and 1928. Intrigued, he did more research concentrating on pilots who had been decorated and came up with nearly 100 post-war flying deaths. He agreed with the publishers of an aviation magazine to write articles on what he had found.

Norman spoke about a number of those he had researched, what had been their wartime aircraft, where they had served and how they finally lost their life. Some had died has a result of being overly exuberant in celebrating the end of the war and crashed while performing flying antics, others had died in trying to break records for distance flown or between two places. A number had attempted to cross the Atlantic, a feat not really to be attempted in a single engine aircraft, and had disappeared somewhere on route. One of Norman’s findings was that many of the pilots had unusual names and he reckons that some from other countries were encouraged to create hyphenated names which would, of course, fit in with the British image of grandeur!

Tim Cook, a former commercial pilot, in his vote of thanks denied he was a former WW1 ace although he had met some during his career. Tim thanked Norman for his fascinating talk and reminded all of us of the adage, “There are old pilots and bold pilots but no old and bold pilots!”