Sheppy in Flight

The Isle of Sheppy is quite a small island, lying just off the north coast of Kent and joined to the rest of the county by a nice new bridge.

It has the ruins of a medieval Abbey, a 'due-to-be-developed' dockyard which is some 400 years old and some nice beaches (and Warden Point, in the north east of the island, has some good fossils eroding out of the cliffs), but its strongest claim to historic fame is often overlooked and forgotton. It is the place where flying in England literally took off (sorry, couldn't resist the pun).

In 1900, Count von Zepplin flew his first airship. In 1903, the Wright brothers made their historic, first, heavier-than-air flight at Kitty Hawk. In 1906, the Royal Engineers started building Britain's first airship in Hampshire. Sheppy dozed on, until, in 1908, the brothers Horace and Eustace Short came to Sheppy, looking for a a quiet place to fly airplanes. They found what had been a 400-acre golf course at Leysdown.

Later that year, Eustace Short went over to France, where he met Wilbur Wright and came back to Sheppy with a licence to build six of the Wright brothers' 'Flyers'. The Short Brothers became the first airplane manufacturers to establish an assembly line to build aircraft anywhere in the world and the firm of Shorts, aircraft builders, continued on, specialising in building flyng boats until just after WW2.

In 1908 there were no Britons with flying licences. Claude Moore-Brabazon became the first to do so, but he had to go to France to learn! Some months later, he also proved that pigs could fly, by taking one up in an airplane with him (I wish I could find the photo!)

In 1909, James Gordon Bennett, an American publisher, donated prizes for what was, in effect, the very first Air Race (seen 'Those Magnificent Men in their Flyng Machines'? - That's based on Gordon Bennett's race) in France and two more races followed, one on Sheppy (1911) and one on Long Island in the USA (1910).

For the Sheppy race, the air magazine, 'Flight' recommended that the best train to catch from London to Sheppy was the 9.45 from Victoria, arriving at Queenborough on Sheppy at 10:55. It takes about the same time to get to Sheppy today!

Also in 1909, the Short Brothers bought some land at Eastchurch, in the south of the Island, where they were able to extend their factory and hence, their production.

On 30th October, 1909, Moore-Brabazon became the first Briton to fly a circular mile in a British-built aricraft, in Britain, in fact, on Sheppy. He won a prize of £1,000 offered by the 'Daily Mail' newspaper for doing so.

In 1910, the British military started taking an interest in aircraft. They had 2 airplanes and 2 airships. At that time, France had 29 aircraft and 7 airships, Germany had 5 aircraft and 14 airships, whilst even Tsarist Russia had 6 aircraft and 3 airships, so Britain was definitely lagging behind.

In 1911, the Royal Navy rented some land and established a flyng school at Eastchurch, using part of the grounds which had been bought by the Royal Aero Club a couple of years earlier. They bought 4 aircraft and the Navy gave their officers 6 months to complete their training. They also made it quite clear that anyone learning to fly was unlikely ever to gain command of their own ship! Despite this warning, more than 200 officers applied for places on the course . Four naval officers (and six army officers, learning in a private capacity) got their Pilot's Certificates.

One of the naval officers, Lt. Charles R. Sampson, stayed on at Eastchurch and took the job of testing the Shorts' aircraft, becoming, in effect, the first professional Test Pilot.

Winston Churchill, then First Sea Lord, encouraged the Navy to try flying an airplane off the deck of a ship. In 1912, Lt. Sampson took off from the deck of HMS Africa, docked in Sheerness Harbour (Sheppy) and landed on the Isle of Grain (which isn't an island any more, but part of a penninsula just north of the Medway Towns, in Kent). Glen Curtis had already flown from the deck of a ship in the USA the previous year.

In April of 1912, the Royal Flying Corps was formed. The original intention was to have a joint Army/Navy flying school at Eastchurch, but (not surprisingly) it never happened. Instead, Eastchurch became the Headquarters of the Royal Naval Flying Service (now the Fleet Air Arm).

Eastchurch was becoming too small to host both building and flying aircraft, so Short Brothers moved their operation to Rochester, where they continued to build flying boats from their Esplanade works. (Sadly, no sign that it was there, today).

During the First World War, the RFC became the RAF, and the RNAS, still flying from Eastchurch, became, for the last 6 months of the War, technically members of the RAF, seconded in from the Navy, but they still wore their naval uniforms.

Throughout WW1, the inter-war years and WW2, Eastchurch remained a military airfield, but in 1947, it was decommissioned and the ownership passed to the Home Office, who later used the site to build 3 prisons.

Apart from some photographs in the entrance to HM Prison, Eastchurch, and a small shed used to store animal feed, plus a stained glass window in Eastchurch church, commemorating two lost flying pioneers, there is nothing else left to show of Sheppy's pioneering participation in flying's very early days.