48 THE AVIATION HISTORIAN Issue No 21
from the crowd. Both aircraft were airborne
again by 1501hr.
Flying towards Doncaster, the pilots began to
encounter patches of mist. They landed together
at Doncaster at 1533hr and took off again
18min later. Once more mist was encountered,
and visibility was seriously reduced. This
caused more problems for Raynham because
he was unfamiliar with the area over which he
was flying. By the time he reached Sheffield,
Blackburn had begun to pull ahead and landed
at 1620hr, 4min ahead of Raynham.
Blackburn took off from Sheffield at 1642hr,
and landed at the Barnsley checkpoint 13min
later. He took off again at 1719hr, by which time
Raynham had still not arrived. In fact, the Avro
had flown over Barnsley in the mist and landed
by mistake at Dewsbury, 16 miles (25km) to the
north-west. Realising their mistake, Raynham
and Roe decided not to double-back and instead
flew on to Leeds, where the Avro landed at
1730hr. Blackburn, having waited at Barnsley for
24min, arrived at Leeds at 1748hr.
The real winner?
The Yorkshire Evening News Challenge Trophy
was awarded to the Yorkshire team, as the
Lancashire team was disqualified for missing
one of the checkpoints. Lancastrians claimed
that Blackburn’s local knowledge gave him an
unfair advantage when attempting to identify
landmarks in poor visibility conditions. Possibly
this was the reason that it was agreed to repeat
the event the following year, but this time
over Lancashire. A Manchester—Blackpool—
Liverpool—Manchester course was agreed, but
the outbreak of the First World War intervened
and the whole idea was dropped.and the whole idea was dropped.
As far as the relative merits of the aircraft are
concerned, it must be recognised that the Type
I was one of the last of Blackburn’s monoplane
designs. The 504 established Avro as a successful
aircraft manufacturer, went on to see extensive
service during the First World War and after-
wards, and was still in production some 15 years
later, with a total of more than 10,000 being built.
Final proof of the ultimate superiority of the
Avro 504 came in July 1914 — when one Avro 504 came in July 1914 — when one
was purchased by Harold Blackburn!
TAHMAP BY MAGGIE NELSONBELOW Despite having beaten the Avro 504 prototype in the War of the Roses air race in a Blackburn monoplane,
Harold Blackburn purchased one of the first production 504s, which is seen here on The Stray in Harrogate, with a
view to establishing a “flying circus”. The plan came to nothing, howeverview to establishing a “flying circus”. The plan came to nothing, howeverview to establishing a “flying circus”. The plan came to nothing, however, owing to the outbreak of the Great War., owing to the outbreak of the Great War.
PHILIP JARRETT COLLECTION