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'Sir Alan John Cobham', KBE, AFC (May 6 1894- October 21 1973) was an English aviation pioneer.
A member of the Royal Flying Corps in World War I, Alan Cobham became famous as a pioneer of long distance aviation. After the war he became a test pilot for the de Havilland aircraft company, and was the first pilot for the newly formed de Havilland Aeroplane Hire Service. In 1921 he made a 5000 mile air tour of Europe, visiting 17 cities in 3 weeks. In 1924 he flew a Short Singapore flying boat around the continent of Africa landing only in British territory. In August 1926, he flew from England to Australia where 60,000 people swarmed across the grassy fields of Essendon Airport, Melbourne when he landed his DH.50 float plane (it had been converted to a wheeled undercarriage earlier, at Darwin^[1]). He was knighted the same year.
In 1932 he started the National Aviation Day displays - a combination of barnstorming and joyriding. This consisted of a team of up to fourteen aircraft, ranging from single-seaters to modern airliners, and many skilled pilots. It toured the country, calling at hundreds of sites, some of them regular airfields and some just fields cleared for the occasion. Generally known as "Cobham's Flying Circus", it was hugely popular, giving thousands of people their first experience of flying, and bringing "air-mindedness" to the population. These continued until the end of the 1935 season.^[2]
In 1935 he founded a small airline that flew from London Croydon Airport to the Channel Islands. Months later, after a crash that killed one of his pilots, he sold it to Olley Air Service Ltd and turned to the development of inflight refueling. Trials stopped at the outbreak of World War II until interest was successfully revived by the RAF and US Air Force in the last year of the war.
He once remarked: 'It's a full time job being Alan Cobham!'. He retired to the British Virgin Islands, but returned to England where he died in 1973.
The company he formed is still active in the aviation industry as Cobham plc.
As a child he attended Wilson's School^[3], then in Camberwell, London. The School relocated to the former site of Croydon Airport in 1975.

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See also

References

See also

★ Aerofilms-the UK's first commercial aerial photography company

★ His portrait (by Frank O. Salisbury, 1926, [1]) is in the National Portrait Gallery.

★ Biography at Cobham Plc

References

1. Wonders of World Aviation, Vol 10, 1938
2. Arthur Ord-Hume, Aeroplane Monthly, August 1973
3. Allport, D.H. & Friskney, N.J. "A Short History of Wilson's School", Wilson's School Charitable Trust, 1987