Landed Airplane on Busy Road and Asked for "Juice"

Radio Record, Volume X, Issue 9, 11 September 1936, Page 24

Landed Airplane on Busy Road and Asked for "Juice"

"Air Days" Written By

Aviation Pioneer

XTRAORDINARY air adventures are. narrated in "Air Days,’ by John F. Leeming, in his youth a deSigner and builder of gliders, in his early manhood one of the founders, one of the first pilots and chairman of the executive of the Lancashire Aero Club, and then founder anda director and Service.manager of Northern Air Lines Ltd. He landed on g highway -busy with traffic for the simple reason that he Was running out of "juice" and saw a petrol.station at which he could fill up, and has in his book a phoitograph -to prove it. He alighted on the top: of-a-mountain in the early days of the aero club movement . because this novel feat appealed to him as Ohne way of publicising aviation at a time: when it needéd advertising. He flew upside down with a broken safety belt, held’ in by cotton webbing which stretched and loosened every time the plane: went over on its back, because the stunts had tobe performed so as not’: -to disappoint a crowd at an air pageant.

Ten years of pretty regular flying in all sorts of machines from all sorts of grounds in all sorts of weathers in the immediate post-war days and the early stages of aero club growth "were perhaps. bound to produce these escapades, for ground and flying equipment was then far from what it is to-day, and pilots ‘were hell-seeking dare-devils out for fun and to provide fun for others. 7 Leeming was one of those who "had his fling’ in the old racketty days o% aviation, but still kept on flying long enough to see a new way of doing things come jnto flying, with the growth of clubs and companies making flying a business, and a serious business gt that, with aerodromes built for the needs of machines, aeroplanes with frames and engines practically immune from breakage in the air, and pilots given long periods of training under experts, made to pass tests before being licensed, and helped ‘by instrumental, wireless and meteorological aids to safe flying. "Air Days." John F, Fleming. George G. Harrap. Our copy from the publishers.