The 2016 Cobham Lecture
Possibly suffering from intellectual exhaustion (see the Lunch Club report), Company members repaired to the Royal Aeronautical Society for the Company's first formal lecture of the year. The audience was most definitely more esteemed and eclectic than usual: headed by Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, graced by Camilla Cobham ( Sir Alan's grand-daughter), and Dame Diana Rigg, 38 masters of other companies joined the Air Pilots for a full house.The speaker was Tracey Curtis-Taylor, better known by her self-given moniker of 'Bird in a Biplane'. Relatively recently returned from a flight in a Stearman to Australia, and shortly to embark on a TransAmerican journey in the same craft.
Her journeys have benefited enormously from substantial (and appropriate) sponsorship - in her case from the foresight of John Dodd, chief executive of Artemis, the fund management firm. Her inspiration, through most of her aviation career, has been Amy Johnson.
The Master in his introduction pointed out that Amy had been introduced to her main sponsor, Lord Wakefield (chairman of Castrol), through Sir Sefton Brancker - a seminal figure in the early years of the Company.
Tracey only arrived at aviation after a peripatetic series of jobs, eventually being inspired by warbird flying whilst in New Zealand.A trip to the Cape was her first major international flight in the Stearman, but the inspiration of Amy meant that she had to aim for an Australian trip at some stage. The choice of her 1942 Stearman itself created some distance from Amy's feat - a lot more substantial, and a lot more thirsty (40- 50lph).
Her journeys have been very much 21st century ones, embracing the GoPro era with copious cameras and photographers, and a chase aircraft bringing luggage and avgas, and also assisting in navigation, and very proactive
PR. Moreover, for most flights on the 2015/6 expedition to Australia she was accompanied by the aircraft's owner, Ewald Gritsch, a 20,000 hour instructor.
The trip was used as a platform to promote women in aviation and also education in STEM subjects. So there were frequent stops to spread the word - two weeks at the Dubai Airshow, for example. By the time she had reached India, she was a victim of her own
PR success - the media had gone 'beserk', and in consequence she was mobbed by 2,000 schoolgirls in Karachi. The low point was possibly Indonesia where her chase aircraft was detained for a month for flying through a restricted area. After her return to the UK later this year from her transcontinental US flight, a film will be released. (STOP PRESS: Tracey and Ewald crashed after take-off on one of their first flights on theTrans US trip.The Stearman is now being rebuilt.)