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Come Fly With Me? Can Anyone Help With This Photo?

Del-boy

proper brummie kid
Hi everyone, I am just wandering if anyone can identify when and where this photograph of my mother was taken? She was called Doris Mary Field and I am guessing that this photograph was taken some time in the 1930's. She was born in 1914 (infact just 4 days before the outbreak of WW1), so I would say she was in her 20's when this photograph was taken, so that puts it about 1934 onwards. She would have been living with her parents in Harborne at the time it was taken. I would be most grateful for any help.
img610.jpg
 
Hi Del Boy - A very nice photo but not much to go on and your mother is unfortunately standing in front of the aircraft registration which might have given a clue. Unfortunately no identifiable building in the photo but one local airfield open in the 1920s and 1930s was Castle Bromwich and there are forum threads about it. At a first quick look the aircraft could be a Miles Magister M.14 Training Aircraft, c1936 which had two cockpits, and wheel spat streamlining .
See an example pic below where the rear cockpit is covered and being used for night flying training.
miles-magister-trainer.jpg
and another showing the wheel streamlining spats ...
magisterm14.jpg
 
Hi oldMohawk - Thank you for that - Yes I rather wondered if it was Castle Bromwich airfield and I will look at the forum threads. Love the photographs of the Miles Magister and agree that that does look like the aeroplane in question. Certainly the date of 1936 ties in with my thoughts about her age at the time of the photo. Makes me also wonder how come she was there? My father was a little bit older than her and they got married in 1942, so I wonder if he took the photograph or whether this was taken by someone at the airfield as a memento? Perhaps my parents had gone there for the day and she decided to go up in an aeroplane? She never talked about this event to me and my parents never flew abroad anywhere. Photographs are marvelous but they can leave you with so many questions too!!! A big thank you though for your marvelous reply!!
 
Hi Del-boy - Yes we have had some puzzles on the forum with old aircraft pics. Just a further snippet of information, the aircraft is probably a Miles M18 which was a civil version of the trainer see the pic below. Also there was an airfield at Cofton Hacket which would have been there in the 1920s and 1930s and was later used by the Austin Motor Company during WW2.
oldmohawk
Miles_M.18_Mk.2_G-AHKY_Yeadon_05.56.jpg
 
oldMohawk - you may have hit the nail on the head because my grandfather worked at Austins during WW2 and if my mother was going out with my father at the time it would have been quite natural to have wandered up to Cofton Hacket airfield one weekend for a look around bearing in mind how new flying was still back then. As my wife has also mentioned, my mother was probably just posing against the plane and had not in all likelihood gone up in it - certainly it would have been too expensive and you would have expected her to have maybe have had the goggles around her head and a helmet in the picture. The picture of the aeroplane you have attached most certainly looks like the one. Thanks once again. Del-boy
 
Hi Del-boy
Having another look at the aircraft your mother is standing by, I now think it is a Miles M.2H Hawk Major an example shown in Pic 1 and could be the aircraft listed on the Civil Aircraft Register highlighted in Pic 2 as G-ACZJ. If it is the aircraft in the list, see that it was registered in November 1934 and later sold to India in June 1936 so maybe the photo was taken between those dates.
Pic 1
Pic 1-Miles_M.2H_Hawk_Major.jpg

Pic 2
Pic 2 iOS Gaczj.JPG
 
The aircraft was registered in India and used as below see the information in the Pic below.
Pic 3 In-India.JPG
 
Trying to find the history of the aircraft in Britain and where it was based led me to this very strange information about it being in Sweden !! The text in the screenshot is translated from Swedish so might not be exact and mentions India.
screenshot 1.JPG miles_hawk.jpg
The Miles Hawk Major (post#1) with English registration G-ACZJ (c / n 122) was was photographed on 26 November 1934 at Barkarby Airfield in Sweden still with it's British registration and was brand new and registered just ten days earlier, on November 16, with Aircraft Distributors Ltd, Heston. This information suggests that it did not spend much time in England going from manufacture in a matter of days to Sweden. (additional information added)
 
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oldMohawk, that is quite amazing and certainly bears out my thoughts about my mother's age! It is incredible that so much information is out there and how through groups like this, it is possible with some degree of certainty to date a photograph! What is also amazing is that my dad didn't cut off her head (assuming he took it that is), because I have loads of photo's taken by him with heads cut off! Probably not really his fault because when he took them, he probably needed glasses! I will put all this information and reference it to you in my blog https://sewellfamilyhistory.blogspot.co.uk Thank you once again for all the information and for taking the time and trouble:):)
 
In the 1930's a pilot called Alan Cobham ran "a flying circus" - these often landed and flew from any large cleared field. I know my Mother spoke about one coming to Solihull/Shirley. However, I don't know much about it and it doesn't answer the question. I did come across this site https://afleetingpeace.org/index.ph...sure/158-cobham-s-air-circus-1933-at-a-glance
Janice
Thank you for that pjmburns it is amazing to think there is all this information out there and wonderful members of groups like this to impart it! A big thank you for your contribution. What a wonderful innocent age my parents lived in - pity that innocence was shattered by the events that were just around the corner! :)
 
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oldMohawk, that is quite amazing and certainly bears out my thoughts about my mother's age! It is incredible that so much information is out there and how through groups like this, it is possible with some degree of certainty to date a photograph! What is also amazing is that my dad didn't cut off her head (assuming he took it that is), because I have loads of photo's taken by him with heads cut off! Probably not really his fault because when he took them, he probably needed glasses! I will put all this information and reference it to you in my blog https://sewellfamilyhistory.blogspot.co.uk Thank you once again for all the information and for taking the time and trouble:):)
A few of us on the forum are aviation enthusiasts and always interested in any photos which have aircraft in them.

The Miles Aircraft Company was situated at Woodley Airfield near Reading and some information about it can be found in this link, https://museumofberkshireaviation.co.uk/
The History & Personalities section gives information about F.G.Miles and his wife 'Blossom' who he married after she bought an aircraft from him. She eventually played a large part in the operation of the company.

Sorry that I can't identify the airfield where your mother's photo was taken but one airfield the aircraft would have flown from is the factory airfield at Woodley near Reading, see the 1931 photo below.
Woodley3a.jpg
 
Could have dropped in at Cofton on the way to Sweden?
Hi Speedy - I had a look to see whether G-ACZJ had passed through the Midlands on it's way to Sweden but found nothing but the aircraft had quite an eventful life after it got to Sweden.

On 2 December 1934, Herbert von Schinkel in Miles Hawk Major G-ACZJ started a flight (photo in post#9) from Barkarby to spend Christmas in Kenya. The route went via Copenhagen - London - Paris - Tunis - Cairo reaching Nairobi on Christmas Eve. The return flight started January 7, 1935, and von Schinkel arrived back at Barkarby on January 18.

On the way back, the route went via Paris - Amsterdam - Hamburg with a forced landing in a field near Kampen in the Netherlands.

The Dutch press reported that a Hawk Major aircraft had made an emergency landing in a field near Kampen in the Netherlands and that an aircraft piloted by reserve lieutenants of the Swedish army, Messrs H. D. von Schinkel and C.Axel had come down without damage and without personal risk. The pilots had spent the night in Kampen and resumed the flight back to Barkarby via Hamburg. The newspaper seemed interested that Eva Dickson and Bror Blixen Finecke (Google them if you want !) had visited von Schinkel in Kenya.

G-ACZJ's last reported event in Sweden was when Herbert von Schinkel participated in air show in Norrköping in late May 1935. After that, the plane was flown back to England and then resold to India.

I suppose this info is not much help to Del-boy apart from confirming two time slots when the aircraft was in England.
 
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To every one who has replied a big thank you for all the time & trouble spent researching. Cushty
 
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