Portsdown Hill
Note: This map only shows my rough 'guesstimate' of where this site might have been. Ample enough for a position within the UK, but hardly satisfactory for this 'Guide'. If anybody today can give a more exact location, this advice will be most welcome.
PORTSDOWN HILL: Early gliding site
Location: Near Fort Southwick, NW of Portsmouth. (In/near Plymouth one account states!)
NOTES: In his most excellent book ‘Old Flying Days’ C C Turner says that in 1909 Lieut. Porte, (who later became very famous in British military aviation – my note), and initially in the Submarine Department of the Navy built, with the help of a friend W B Pirie, a glider which they, (it was a two-seater), practised with at Portsdown Hill near to Fort Southwick. With very limited success it seems. Hardly surprising I suppose in those days as it was carrying two pilots!
He later built a powered monoplane based on the Santos Dumont ‘Demoiselle’ lines but so far at least I don’t think he flew it from this location? Perhaps from SHOREHAM? Any descent sized field could have been used of course.
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