Help - Gatwick Airport history

[Fozzer]

Professional Pilots RUmour NEtwork. Lots of forums from Airlines, military to GA and history and nostalgia. Very good place, and is frequented by such people as John Farley, and many experienced and (well known) airmen (I could throw in a few names). Well worth a visit just for the history section itself.

Charlie

John Farley, (former Harrier test pilot), has a regular slot in the UK "Flyer" magazine each month.
He's a nice character... ...!

Cheers...
Paul.

[Hagar]

I'm reviving this thread as I found a little more info on the mystery aeroplane I was looking for. I joined the Shoreham Airport Historical Society yesterday & found this request in the Summer 2003 issue of their journal.

"Have you a photograph of the Pee Wee?

The 'Pee Wee' a strange little aeroplane dating from 1948 and known to have displayed at the Daily Exress Airshow at Gatwick in 1948 and witnessed by Tony Short who spent the past year working on our 'Flying Flea'. The Pee Wee was built by William Chana and two colleagues in their garage in California. The flying position was lying along the fuselage, yes you had to lay down over the wing centre section of the wing. Although the pilot laid on top of the machine the controls were built into the forward fuselage so to operate these it was necessary for the pilot to place his arms through two armholes to fly the aeroplane. In its day the Pee Wee was thought to have been the smallest aeroplane in the world. The machine had a wingspan of 15 feet & a legnth of only 13 feet. The overall weight was 150 pounds."

I intend following this up to see if anything new has been discovered. Unless he's mistaken this was a year earlier than the Daily Express Air Pageant at Gatwick in 1949. I found some interesting photos from the programme posted here. http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=39543