Issue No 22 THE AVIATION HISTORIAN 93
true — and invite you to Ingoldmells on Sunday,
August 27th, when the GRAND AIR DISPLAY as
advertised will take place.”
Happily, the weekend of August 26–27 dawned
sunny and bright, with high cloud giving good
visibility over the airfield, and a brisk but
manageable breeze from the south-west giving
the displaying pilots something to work with.
Public attendance was again good, the Skegness
Standard estimating a crowd of around 3,000 on
the Sunday afternoon.
In total 11 visiting aircraft were present,
the pilots of which were each given 5min to
demonstrate the capabilities of their machine;
Skegness Airport officials were tasked with
judging the winner, which turned out to be Mr J.
Scott of Leicester, who gave what the local press
called an “intriguing display” of aerobatics in his
de Havilland Tiger Moth.
The usual aerial activities were laid on, with
a height- and speed-judging competition using
Rapide G-AKOG, which flew at 100ft (30m) for
the height element; at 70 m.p.h. (113km/h) for
the slow pass and 140 m.p.h. (225km/h) for the
fast pass. Spectators lined the runway and were
given the job of watching a flypast to decide
which of the visiting aircraft was the smartest,
this honour going to Miles Gemini G-ALUG,
flown in by Dr J.P. Daly of Leeds.
A slow-flying demonstration by Geoffrey
Gray, one of the airport’s own pilots, was made
in Miles Messenger G-AKKK with passenger
John Stroud, who spent the afternoon taking the
photographs presented here, meeting people and
taking notes. After the customary flour-bombing
competition there was a show of wing-walking
by Chuck Thompson of the Apex Parachute
Group. “Wearing an ordinary sports jacket,
flannels and no parachute,” the Skegness Standard
reported, “Mr Thompson demonstrated wing-
walking in several flypasts by Mr Scott’s Tiger
Moth, piloted by Mr Gray”.
Thompson was called on again to close the
show with a parachute drop from the Tiger
Moth at 2,000ft (600m), delaying the opening
of his canopy until he was at 800ft (250m), thus
bringing the highly enjoyable afternoon’s flying
activities to a suitably dramatic conclusion.
Unusually, John Stroud made his way to and
from the show by ground-based transport, his
only flight logged for the weekend being the
10min Messenger flight with Geoffrey Gray.
Bond Air Services continued its charter air-
taxi operations from Ingoldmells, mainly using
its ageing de Havilland transports, notably
its pair of elderly D.H.86Bs, until these were
disposed of in early 1951, the company ceasing
operations at the end of that year. The airfield
was subsequently taken over in late 1951 by a
new company, Skegness Air Taxi Services Ltd,
which operated a fleet of Austers, Tiger Moths
and Rapide G-ALBA.
The airfield at Ingoldmells continued to host
air rallies and fly-ins, and became a regular
haunt on the UK light aircraft scene for the next
five decades. The airfield remains operational
in 2018, although it generally closes during
October—April in order to rest the grass runway.
Butlin’s still maintains its holiday centre a few
minutes’ walk from the airfield, although the
sound of Cirrus and Gipsy engines echoing
among its numerous rows of holiday homes
is rather more of a rarity these days.ABOVE John Stroud was invited to join airport pilot Geoffrey Gray in the cockpit of Miles Messenger 2A G-AKKK
of the Boston Aero Club for a demonstration of slow flying. The local press was certainly impressed, stating that
“the amazingly slow speed at which he piloted the Messenger over the ’drome had to be seen to be believed”.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author would like to thank
Vic Flintham, Paul Francis of the Airfield Research
Group, Mark Miller, Bill Taylor, Richard Riding and David
Stennett for their help with the preparation of this articleTAH