Evening All,
I have been building this since October 2024 and am pleased to be able to report that it is now finished. It is not WingNutWings because sadly they did not make a kit of the Flyer, and such kits as are available are not in 1/32 scale. It is made from plastic sheet, strip, rod, brass bar and wood: there is a build log in the scratch build section of this site for the masochistic among you. The figure of C Rolls was converted and painted for me by Steve Spooner who is a fellow member of my modelling club. The figure is based on a photo taken at the time of Rolls' historic flight and shows him in the life jacket that he wore for the occasion.
In August 1908, Wilbur Wright demonstrated the Wright brothers? new Flyer variant, (later called the Type A), near Le Mans in France. After taking many passengers, including C.S. Rolls, the latter placed an unconditional order for one. Wright had agreed that copies the Flyer could be built in France under licence, but Griffith Brewer negotiated all of the British and Empire rights on Wright?s machines and managed the UK patents on Wright?s behalf. Brewer, like C.S. Rolls, was a keen balloonist and member of the British Aero Club who was well acquainted with the Short brothers who had been manufacturing balloons for members of the club and the army since 1902. Brewer recommended the Shorts to Wright as potential builders of Flyers under licence in Britain. The result of this was that a contract was signed for six machines, all for members of the Aero Club: the first was reserved for C. S. Rolls.
Rolls was unable to take flying lessons with Wright in France, so the latter suggested that a Flyer be built by the Short brothers without an engine, which he could use to learn to fly. The glider was constructed by Shorts at their factory in Battersea in four weeks during the spring of 1909, and was taken to the Aero Club?s new flying ground at Shellbeach on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent where it was covered in fabric and the final rigging completed. Rolls practised flying from Stamford Hill Eastchurch - a site that he leased for the purpose as it was the closest suitable hill to Shellbeach. (Later in early 1910 this site and adjacent land was bought by the then Royal Aero Club as a new flying ground - it later became Eastchurch airfield).
In December 1908 Wright moved to Pau in southern France and allowed Horace and Eustace Short to measure and sketch the Flyer in February 1909. On their return to the UK Horace Short and P.H. Jones produced the first complete set of working drawings of the Flyer. Meanwhile the Aero Club had bought the landing ground at Shellbeach and the Short Brothers built a new factory 1/2 mile away to assemble the Flyers as the premises at Battersea were too cramped. The factory at Shellbeach was soon found to be too small, and by August 1909 a second unit had been built. The first production line for aircraft was thus established on an relatively remote island off the north coast of Kent: in August 1909 it was employing over 80 men.
The Short Wright Flyer was a three bay biplane with a forward elevator on outriggers which were attached to landing skids. The pilot and passenger sat side by side with the pilot on the left and the engine to the right. Control of the flying surfaces was by levers: the fore-aft elevator control was on the left and a universally pivoted lever on the right moved fore-aft to control the rudder and sideways to warp the wings. A 27hp engine designed by the Wright brothers drove two propellors through separate chains in guide tubes and sprockets. Take off was from a trolley fixed under the landing skids which ran on a launch rail. Assistance in take off was provided via a rope hooked to the trolley and pulled by a falling weight which had previously been raised on a derrick downwind of the rail. Later machines built in France had wheels attached to the landing skids, but Rolls made his historic flight in Short Wright Flyer No 6 which did not have wheels.
C.S. Rolls gained a degree in Mechanisms and Applied Sciences from Trinity College Cambridge. He was a founder member of the Aero Club of Great Britain in 1903, which at the time was a ballooning society. He made over 170 balloon flights and in 1906 won the Gordon Bennett Gold Medal for the longest single flight time. He started one of Britain?s first car dealerships, importing French and Belgian cars: he owned a French car himself. In May 1904 he met H. Royce, another car dealer, and in November they agreed that Rolls would take all of the cars that Royce could produce. 2 years later the partnership was formalised as Rolls Royce Ltd.
Rolls bought the first Flyer to be built by the Short brothers and flew it extensively, winning several prizes in the process. He gained the second pilot?s license to be awarded by the Royal Aero Club. (The first had been awarded to J.T.C. Moore Brabazon). Later he also bought Flyer No 6 and donated No 1 to the Army at Farnborough.
He established a flying ground at Swingate Down, east of Dover Castle and erected a hangar and launch rail there in early 1910. The field was leased from the War Office and later became Swingate airfield which was used by the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War: the RFC squadrons flew from Swingate to France in August 1914. It was from Swingate Down that Rolls made his most famous flight - the first non-stop return crossing of the English Channel in an heavier than air machine on 2 June 1910. The flight started at 6.30 pm and crossed to France approximately 1.5 miles east of Sangatte at around 7.15 pm (UK time), and flew approximately 1/3 mile over France where he dropped a message to the French Aero Club. He returned to Dover at 8.02 pm. The event was witnessed by a crowd of around 3000 people. Rolls claimed no credit for the achievement - all he did was to sit at the controls and let the machine take him! It was he said, a credit to the Short brothers and their high quality engineering.
Rolls bought the third French Flyer to be built which had been fitted with a wheeled undercarriage, and he flew this to Bournemouth in July 1910 for an air competition. Prior to the start of the competition Rolls had a controllable elevator fitted to the rear of the rudders, and it was while he was attempting to make a rapid descent on 12 July that the tail boom distorted and touched one of the propellors with tragic consequences. Rolls was 32 years old when he became the first English person to be killed in an aerial accident, and the 11th in the world to be killed while flying.
Today there are two statues of Rolls. One is in Agincourt Square, Monmouth, where he is shown holding a Wright Flyer, and the second is on Marine Parade in Dover, below Swingate Down as illustrated here.
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There is also a memorial window in Eastchurch parish church.
The model is now on display at Eastchurch Aviation museum close to where Rolls learned to fly his glider and from which ground he made many other flights.
Thanks for looking.
Stephen.
