Howard Pixton
Cecil Howard Pixton was a British aeronautical engineer, test pilot and air racing pilot who was most famous for winning the 1914 Schneider Trophy seaplane race.
Early life
Howard Pixton was the youngest of four boys born to John Pixton, a stockbroker, and his wife Elizabeth, living in West Didsbury, Manchester. They holidayed annually in the Isle of Man, and Howard was educated at Manchester Grammar School. He then worked at engineering companies, becoming a machine tool draughtsman, studying engineering in the evenings. He moved to Leek, Staffordshire to work for an engineering company to gain practical experience. Moving on to work for a local garage, he was asked to drive some customers to Germany, calling in at an aeronautical exhibition in Frankfurt on the way. Pixton thus saw his first aeroplane, and several airships, and having always been fascinated by the current advances in aviation he became determined to learn to fly.In April 1910 he saw Claude Grahame-White and his Farman Box Kite at Lichfield having force-landed with engine trouble during his attempt to fly from London to Manchester to claim the £10,000 Daily Mail prize.
This stirred Pixton to write to almost everyone connected with aviation asking for a job. He received a reply from Humphrey Verdon Roe from ‘Avroplanes’, A.V. Roe, of Brownsfield Mill, Ancoats, Manchester, where aeroplanes were being constructed to be flown by H.V.’s older brother, Alliott Verdon Roe at Brooklands. He was offered a job as a mechanic for A.V. at Brooklands, near Weybridge, Surrey, part of his remuneration being flying lessons. Pixton eagerly accepted.
Avro
He arrived at Brooklands in June 1910 and after a few days Roe gave him his first flight, in one of his Triplanes. He became a pupil and then a friend of Roe, and soon replaced him as test pilot. He quickly became an instructor, demonstrator and pilot for passenger rides in Avro’s series of triplanes and the Type D biplane.The first air meeting Pixton attended was at Blackpool in July, with AV Roe and others along with two Roe III Triplanes. The Triplanes, along with spares, tools and personal belongings, were sent by rail, and Pixton was by chance on the same train. Approaching Preston, sparks from the engine set fire to the tarpaulin covering the aircraft, and Pixton watched as the whole truck and its contents were consumed by the fire. The next day the Avro team rushed to the factory in Manchester and were able to construct a new aircraft from spares within three days, and they took part in the later part of the week-long meeting, Pixton making his first display flight there.
At the 1910 Blackpool meeting A.V. Roe had met a member of the Harvard University Aeronautical Society who ordered a Triplane and invited him to attend their first flying meeting in September. Pixton and others were to accompany him on what was to be a one-month trip. After the Atlantic voyage they arrived at the Squantum Flying Ground outside Boston on 1 September.
Once the two Triplanes that they had brought with them were erected, A.V. Roe flew one but stalled at and was injured in the resulting crash. He recovered sufficiently to return to the airfield and fly the other Triplane, crashing yet again but without hurting himself further. This was the machine bought by the Americans. Roe and the rest of the team returned to Britain, leaving Pixton to assemble a working aircraft from the two wrecks, deliver it to the University, and sell them the remaining parts as spares, the money from which would pay for his fare home. He accomplished all of this and received enough money to travel second class on the voyage home, which was completed by the end of October.
Back at Brooklands, which was now a thriving centre of aviation development and training, Pixton resumed his normal activities, including giving many pleasure flights. He got to know nearly all the important people in British aviation at the time, including Grahame-White, Gordon England, Samuel Cody, James Vallentine, John Alcock, and Mrs Hilda Hewlett and Gustav Blondeau who together would form a flying school and an aircraft manufacturing business, C. G. Grey and many more.
There was a sewage farm at the side of the landing area which the local council refused to remove without a large payment from the Brooklands owners, which they could not afford. Pilots often landed, overran, or crashed into it, leading to a distasteful procedure of extracting aircraft, pilot and sometimes passenger from the area. Pixton had many more incidents of this than the other pilots, and became known as the ‘’Tripe Hound’’ and ‘’Sewage Farm King’’ along with his regular nicknames which included Pick, Pixie and HP.
Despite this, Pixton gained his Royal Aero Club licence on 24 January 1911 in the Roe IV Triplane, though his licence is dated 31 December 1910.
On 1 April 1911 Pixton made the first flight of A.V. Roe’s first tractor biplane, the first time that A.V. himself hadn’t performed the maiden flight of one of his types. Despite its low power of Pixton was delighted with it, and thought it was Roe’s first really successful design. It was dubbed ‘’The Pixie Plane’’, but would later be known as the Type D. Roe was very pleased with Pixton’s report, though he didn’t fly it himself, and Pixton soon took Roe’s wife up as a passenger, sitting in the front of the tandem seats.
Pixton took part in air races including taking the new biplane on the Brooklands to Brighton race, the first British point-to-point air race, held on 6 May 1911. Pixton started the race late, distracted by a flight for the Manville Prize, then got lost and had to land at what turned out to be Plumpton Racecourse to refuel, and arrived at the finish line well after the other three contestants.
Pixton was also involved in the first pilots’ strike in history. Mrs Hewlett was incensed that the management of Brooklands was only paying 5% of gross takings to the pilots at race meetings. She demanded 25%, and at the next event the pilots refused to fly for longer than the bare minimum needed to qualify for prizes, and kept their planes locked up in hangars for the rest of the day, unavailable for public inspection. Soon the management relented, the percentage and the prize money were increased and normality returned. The action was widely reported, and the publicity was good for all.
After all this, Pixton’s reputation had grown enormously, and he was now very well-known by the public as well as in the industry. Roe was only paying him £104 per year and couldn’t afford more, so Pixton contacted the Bristol company, who offered him £250 per year. He left Avro in early June 1911, parting on friendly terms with the Roe brothers, and very grateful for the opportunity they had given him.
Bristol
The British and Colonial Aeroplane Company, Ltd., commonly known as Bristol, was a large, well-financed company run by businessman Sir George White, chairman of the Bristol Tramways Company. It was a great contrast to the small, enthusiast-run outfits that comprised most of his competitors. In 1910 they had set up flying schools at Brooklands and at Larkhill, near Stonehenge in Wiltshire, the latter leased from the War Office along with flying rights over of Salisbury Plain. Initially three iron sheds were erected.Pixton started at Bristol’s Brookands school, instructing pupils flying their Boxkite biplanes. He gained a great reputation for his skill in flying in high winds that left everyone else grounded Bristol used this in adverts even though he had only been with them for a few weeks.
Pixton was entered for “The Great Race” or “Daily Mail Circuit of Britain air race’’, an anti-clockwise tour of England and Scotland running from 22 July to 5 August 1911, starting and ending at Brooklands, and with a prize of £10,000, and prizes for several accomplishments en route, such as fastest to Newcastle and first to land at Trafford Park. Huge publicity and newspaper coverage attended the event, and crowds at the landing grounds were vast. Thirty pilots were registered, but only twenty-one actually started.
On the second racing day, the leg from Hendon to Harrogate, a fuel leak caused Pixton, flying his Boxkite named ‘’Bumble Bee’’, to attempt a forced landing at Spofforth cricket ground, four miles short of Harrogate. He stalled on the approach, narrowly missing the cricket pavilion, but crashed into the grass. Luckily his legs, though trapped, were not crushed, but a spar was pushed two inches into his thigh. He pulled it out, later needing two stitches. He also had a cut to his hand and a few bruises. It was his worst ever crash, and the aircraft was destroyed.
File:Bristol Boxkite 1911.jpg|thumb|A Bristol Boxkite flying over Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain
Pixton carried on at Brooklands flying passengers, demonstrating and instructing, but on 31 August 1911 Bristol moved him to Larkhill as an instructor and test pilot. The training was of civilians and army pilots from the nearby army bases on Boxkites. Having made his career and many friends at Brooklands, he was very reluctant to go, but he found that he enjoyed the comparative peace and quiet of the area, and the flying conditions were favourable.
He was able to carry on competing for the Manville Prize for the most hours flying at Brooklands with passengers during the year. He flew there from Larkhill to compete. By the end of 1911 he had won the contest, bringing his prize money for the year to over £900 – more than anyone else flying in Britain. His achievement was celebrated by an advert in Aeroplane by the E.N.V. Motor Syndicate whose engine powered the Boxkites.
In 1912 Bristol started an overseas sales drive, and Pixton was the pilot chosen to make some of the trips. He started at the 3rd International Paris Aero Salon with the new Bristol Prier monoplane being the only British aircraft on display, with another Bristol Prier giving flying displays at the airfield.
The Bristol team then proceeded by train to Cuatro Vientos, Madrid where he flew a Bristol Prier, with another Bristol pilot flying a Boxkite, in front of the king, Alfonso XIII. Bristol arranged to set up a flying school and to equip it with Priers and Boxkites. By March they had travelled on to Döberitz Military Ground, Berlin, with a Prier. Impressing the German military, orders were placed and an agreement made to produce Bristol aircraft under licence.
In April 1912 Pixton was asked to test the Bristol-Burney X.2 hydroplane which had been built at Filton with great secrecy. In Milford Haven testing took place over three weeks, but with little success, and Pixton endured many drenchings in the process.
Soon after this Pixton returned to Germany, this time to visit the new Deutsche Bristol Werke company at Halberstadt, which was starting to produce the Boxkites and Prier aircraft under the licence agreed during his first visit. He was to form a flying school, and to teach six German officers, after which he returned to Larkhill.
Pixton took part in the Military Aircraft Trials at Larkhill in August 1912. Preparations were extensive and flying school activities were temporarily transferred to Brooklands. Thirty different aircraft types had been prepared to try to meet the War Office specifications, twenty of them actually arriving for the contest. Pixton started the trials flying a Bristol England biplane, but mid-way through the trials the Englands were withdrawn and he replaced James Valentine as pilot of a new Bristol Coanda monoplane for the remainder of the tests. Pixton and two others came joint 3rd, behind the winner, Cody, but no aircraft was deemed suitable for adoption by the military.
With the relative success of the Bristol Coanda, Romania was interested in the aircraft, so Pixton went there in October 1912 to demonstrate a tandem-seat version, accompanied by the designer, Henri Coandă, whose father was the war minister. Landing after one demonstration flight, Pixton ran into what he thought was a damp patch on Bucharest’s Cotroceni Aerodrome. The patch but was actually a pond and his aircraft overturned. He and his passenger survived unharmed and the aircraft was undamaged but moist and muddy, but was soon ready to fly again. He spent a month flying in Romania, and an order for ten was placed for the government.
Soon he went to Italy with a team of Bristol people and accompanied by his new wife where Pixton did a demonstration tour with Bristol aircraft, especially the Coanda, and the Italian government placed an order for a total of around 60 aircraft, some of which were to be built under licence by Caproni.
In January 1913 he made another trip to Spain to demonstrate the Bristol Coanda to King Alfonso, whom Pixton flew as a passenger. Again orders were placed for the aircraft.
Pixton and the rest of the Larkhill team had to move to Brooklands in October 1913 as the army wanted to take over the airfield for artillery ranges by March 1914.
Pixton found working for Bristol to be very agreeable. The company was generous, paying him £350 a year plus a third of prize money, and concerned for the well-being of its pilots. However in November 1913 he had an argument with Coandă about the balance of the new biplane he was going to fly, and refused to fly the aircraft until the problem was remedied. Coanda refused to make any changes, so Pixton resigned and joined the Sopwith Aviation Company.