Lt Parkes RFC

[ATR42300]

I read in a Pilot mag many years ago about spinning the more popular term for "Parkes Dive" which takes its name from one Lt Parkes RFC who whilst flying over the airfield at Larkhill on Salisbury Plain inadvertantly entered a spin. He was not the first to find himself in this situation nor the first to recover from it, but he was the first to know how he managed to recover and it is that recovery action that we perform today.

Can anyone throw some more light on this individual and his career please?

Many thanks

[Thai Pom]

In August 1912 RFC Lieutenant Wilfred Parke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Parke) became the first aviator to recover from an accidental spin when the Avro G (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_G) cabin biplane, with which he had just broken a world endurance record, entered a spin at 700 feet above ground level at Larkhill Aerodrome at Salisbury Plain. Four months later on 11 December 1912 Parke was killed by the fall of the Handley Page mono plane in which he was travelling from Hendon to Oxford.

[ATR42300]

Thai Pom

Many thanks!