St Lawrence Hill
St LAWRENCE HILL: Temporary experimental flying site
Location: About 2.5nm NNW of Southminster
Period of operation: October 1903
NOTES: In their excellent book ESSEX: A Hidden Aviation History Paul Bingley and Richard E. Flagg have this to tell us. "The American Wright brothers safely wrote themselves into the history books after making the first powered heavier-than-air human flight on 17 December 1903."
Strictly speaking though, this was was not a flight - it was 'hop' in ground effect. Yes, the machine was airborne and it certainly was flying, that wretched photograph proves this. But a 'flight' is an aerial voyage in which the machine is exercised in all three axis - typically a circuit. Incidentally, in those days an aeroplane was invariably referred to as a 'machine'.
"Three months earlier, however, British engineer and aerodynamicist Horatio Phillips had demonstrated his new 'multi-plane' in Essex. Trialling the engine-driven machine on St Lawrence Hill near Southminster, Phillips claimed to have reached a height of 3 feet (1 metre) over a distance of 30 yards (28 metres). Although his boast was corroborated by a witness, Phillips 'achievement' was never recognised."
Indeed, it appears that many people in different countries had achieved 'hops' in the early years of the twentieth century but did not claim to have made a flight. In fact, it would appear, the great self-publicist Samuel Cody did not claim to have made a flight at FARNBOROUGH when his machine left the ground briefly. That account and claim was made by others.
Sadly, from what I have managed to discover over many years, it now seems highly likely that the Wright brothers, working in semi-secrecy near to Dayton, Ohio, probably did make the first proper 'flight' as it appears they were flying circuits there.
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