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Letters We are always pleased to receive your letters and feedback. Please email the editor at ed.hicks@laa.uk.com
Remembering Mignet
Sir: I was concerned to read the letter from Malcolm Rogan on page nine of the November issue of Light Aviation regarding Henri Mignet for, while I am sure it was not his intent, his words may mislead those to whom the full story of post-war home-built aviation is perhaps less than clear. Nobody disputes the fact that home-built aircraft have always existed in America, and the US regulators have long been both amenable to their existence and tolerant of their presence. Men like Ed Heath were successfully selling plans for aeroplanes in the distant days of the 1920s and equally people were building and flying successful home-made aircraft from Texas to wherever… However, things in Britain were very different. Apart from the fact that the enthusiasm for home-made aircraft was extremely restricted, more by cultural differences from our transatlantic cousins than anything else, the concept of amateur-built aircraft barely existed here. Not without due cause was the weekly magazine The Aeroplane to write, in the early 1930s, that home-made aircraft were effectively illegal in Great Britain.
The birth of a home-building aircraft movement in France in 1934 was thus of some significance. The laissez-faire attitude of the French authorities admitted home-made aircraft unreservedly and the pioneer of that new approach, Henri Mignet, was quickly elevated to international status. In Britain, our newspapers were quick to report that ‘all over France (possibly an exaggeration) people were building aeroplanes in their attics, garages and gardens’. This lit an unsuspected blue touchpaper in the hearts of enterprising Britons, who had been weaned on the more genteel activities of fretwork and tin-soldering projects so freely promulgated in the pages of popular magazines such as Work (a mid-Victorian launch) and F J Camm’s Practical series. What was happening in that land of 300 varieties of cheese quickly overspilled into Germany, Belgium, Holland, Italy – and inevitably crossed the Channel to Britain, thanks largely to the enthusiasm of Stephen Appleby. Henri Mignet’s Flying Flea now sprang up all over the land and our authorities had no alternative but to create legislation to admit the
things alongside the Hawker Harts, Avro 504s and Handley Page Hannibals. Of course, Mignet was no more than an amateur. No aerodynamicist, he could not identify that his successful creation was due to his personal experimentation and a deal of luck. So long as others created identical clones of his specification, they were on safe grounds, but the slightest variation could release a cascade of problems, the most dramatic of which was identified (incorrectly) as control-reversal where pulling back on the stick increased the lift on the rear wing and pushed the nose down. Whereas most aircraft had performance tolerances formed like a broad inverted U, Mignet’s creation was more of an inverted letter V on the peak of which one might balance. But one minor change and you entered the realm of aerodynamic instability. How should we review Mignet today? The news item on Bill Cole’s HM.293 (October issue) was perhaps over the top a bit, while Malcolm Rogan’s letter was a touch too dismissive. No, Mignet may not have been a great aircraft designer, but his contribution was far, far greater. He did something nobody else had done, he sowed the seed of home-built aviation into the quiescent hearts of Brits who were enterprising enough to want to do their own thing. War years put the brakes on development and risked pushing aside all that progress that men like Erik Addyman and Appleby had built on Mignet’s shoulders pre-war. And when our first Minister of Civil Aviation, Lord Swanton, took office in 1946, he had to be educated that there was a dormant movement afoot. It would take a decade of stalwart efforts by men including Bert Waterhouse, Ted Felce and Bob Parker before we had a workable Permit to Fly scheme. Which is why those of us in the know see Henri Mignet as a formidable influence behind where we are today. And let’s not forget that the framework for certifying airworthiness for home-built aircraft was created by the French and adopted by us. It’s easy to forget how much we owe to our friends across La Manche! Yours sincerely, Arthur W J G Ord-Hume (founder member: ULAA). Left A pre-war Flying Flea.
33| LIGHT 8 | LIGHTAVIATION AVIATION| December | January 2019 2021
