The Aviation Historian — January 2018

124 THE AVIATION HISTORIAN Issue No 22

A

NY LIST OF famous British aircraft

designers would be incomplete

without the inclusion of Sir Sydney

Camm, who led the creation of such

outstanding Hawker aeroplanes

as the Fury biplane, Hurricane and Hunter.

However, his early career in aviation was rather

less conspicuous, and a hitherto undiscovered

piece of this chapter has only recently surfaced.

In my continuing quest for aviation-related

items I try to visit any bookshops that might

have obscure aviation items in their stock. Every

now and then my persistence is rewarded, and

such was the case in August 2017, when I made

one of my annual visits to a dealer in Honiton,

Devon. Before I reveal details of what I found,

however, it is perhaps best to set it in context by

describing the initial development of Sydney

Camm’s fascination with things aeronautical.

THE EARLY YEARS

Sydney Camm was born in Windsor, Berkshire,

on August 5, 1893, and two years later his

brother Frederick J. Camm was born. It is

impossible to tell Sydney’s story without

including Fred, as the two brothers shared an

abiding enthusiasm for aeroplanes. A bright

scholar, Sydney left school aged 15 and entered

into an apprenticeship as a carpenter with a local

builder. By this time, 1908, news reports of early

SYDNEY CAMM’S

LONG-LOST TRIPLANE

During a recent trawl through a secondhand bookshop in Devon, PHILIP JARRETT

was surprised — and delighted — to find, in a bound volume of an obscure handicrafts

journal from the immediate post-Great War period, an illustrated series on how to build a

hitherto unknown full-size flying glider triplane design by the 25-year-old Sydney Camm

ABOVE The young Sydney Camm in his Windsor

Model Aeroplane Club days, with an A-frame pusher

flying model. Camm would go on to become one of

Britain’s most distinguished aircraft designers.

ALL IMAGES VIA AUTHOR