HISTORICAL
SIGNIFICANCE
The
new Supermarine Sparrow II was entered into the 1926 Daily Mail Two-seater Light
Aeroplane Competition held in Lympne, Kent, UK. This event encouraged thousands
of new amateur pilots and spurred the eventual private ownership of hundreds of
small aircraft. The event has several notable first public appearances for several
famous aircraft. Among them are the de Havilland Moth, the AVRO Avian, and the
Blackburn Bluebird. The contest was fraught with problems and many of the competitors
suffered ill fortunes. The Sparrow II flown by Henri Biard, had to make a forced
landing due to bad weather and took off again the next day. The landing was also
required due to the fact that the observer traveling with Biard noticed that one
of the pins holding in one of the wing struts had become loose. If it came out
the whole wing would have come off, of which Biard reportedly said it "would
have been very annoying". On the ground, as the crew was getting out of the
aircraft, the wind blew over the plane. They righted the craft and reinserted
the pin. As it was late, they had to spend an uncomfortable the night out there
with their plane. This eliminated the Sparrow II from the competition, which was
won by the Hawker Cygnet flown by Flt. Lt. P.W.S. Bulman and only three other
aircraft finished the race. The Sparrow II went on in 1927 to be useful in testing
out various airfoils (including the Clark Y) for Supermarine under contract with
the British Air Ministry.