Beaumaris flying sites
Note: This map is only a location within the UK and my estimation of where the Saunders-Roe works might have been. If anybody could be kind enough to offer a more exact location, this will be most welcome.
BEAUMARIS: Temporary aerodrome
Operated by: Alan Cobham’s 1933 No.1 National Aviation Day tour
NOTES: Don’t you just love this stuff? “The NAD team left Whitchurch, (GREGORY’S FIELD), for BEAUMARIS, Angelsey en route to Ireland, and flew, not for the first time, into a barrage of public contoversey for flying on a Sunday, violating the traditional sanctity of the Welsh Sabbath”.
But as the Whitchurch Herald smugly reported, to partake in an event which, “despite the publicly expressed disapproval by leading ministers and religious laymen, the flying demonstrations were attended by thousands of men, women and children who came in motor-cars, and on cycles, and motor coaches, from all parts of Anglesey and north Caernarvonshire”. The display took place on the 10th September.
A NATIONAL HERO
I will always maintain that Sir Alan Cobham is a national hero easily ranking alongside names such as Drake, Wellington, Nelson and Churchill.
For anybody working in his organisation in the 1930s especially it must have surely been a living nightmare by and large? A 24/7 job most of the time. Cobham was a total ‘workaholic’ maniac. But this is viewing the operation from the values we have half a century later of course. I can only suppose that just about everybody involved shared a similar dedication to the success of these projects, worked “hell for leather” throughout and this in itself mostly explains their pretty good safety record?
BEAUMARIS: Aircraft assembly & flying boat base
Note: Both of these pictures were obtained from Google Earth ©
Operated by: Saunders-Roe
Location: 4nm NE of Bangor
Period of operation: WW2 only?
NOTES: In WW2 Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina flying boats were assembled and modified here before being flown out to operational Coastal Command squadrons by ATA 6 FP crews often employing teenage Air Cadets to perform sundry aircrew duties.
The wonderful part of investigating aviation history is of course the often fascinating people involved. Take Winifred Brown nee Adams for example. In her own right she was quite an accomplished ‘aviatrix’, once owning the Avian III G-EBVZ. When the German Blitz regime of aerial bombing visited Manchester in 1941 the family moved to Beaumaris and Winifred took her ‘ticket’ as a trawler skipper to become Saunders Roe’s ‘chief coxswain’ or ‘marine superintendent’ supervising the motor launches and fishing boats to ferry crews to and from the Catalina flying boats and arranging the towing to new berths etc.
THE SAD END OF AN ERA
The operation of aircraft from water, especially with very large aircraft, is a substantial part of British aviation history and could, quite rightly, be regarded almost as a science of flying in itself. Sadly since WW2 almost all this wisdom and knowledge seems largely lost - and only in Scotland in recent years are moves being made, albeit with light aircraft, to restore interest in this superb and ‘ultra-safe’ form of flying.
It appears that the Saunders-Roe factory eventually closed in 1964 but I imagine that flying operations ceased shortly after WW2 ended?
MORE INFORMATION
In September 2020 Mr Graham Frost kindly provided this additional information. "At its peak c.200 people were employed at this site. They included Tecwyn Roberts, who became a key figure in the USA's manned space flight programme. Others were employed in ancillary workshops in Beaumaris. Saunders-Roe converted over 300 flying boats during the Second World War. I also believe that trials of a Spitfire float plane was also carried out here."
"The aircraft modifications finished with the end of the war in August 1945." (My note: All involving PBY-5 Catalinas?). Graham also notes that; "...the MAEE tested the Auster float planes for the Antarctic in 1949 and testing the SRA1 in the 1950s. The site continued to be used until 1997 for the design and manufacture of a diverse range of items including Motor Torpedo Boats, military vehicles and the coachwork for buses."
Tony lewis
This comment was written on: 2016-03-01 20:35:28On the day of the Sir Alan Cobham's air show at Beaumaris 10/09/1933 a plane made a forced landing just outside Llannerchymedd, believed to be an Avro504N, piloted by a female. She requested fuel which was supplied by the owner of the Kings Head, upon refuelling she took off, I suspect en route to Ireland. Does anyone have any information as regards the identity of the lady pilot?
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