“The Hawker Association is delighted to learn that Jeff Boyling and the crew flying G-PBYA of Plane Sailing Air Display Ltd, plan to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of Harry Hawker’s 1913 attempt to circuit Britain in a Sopwith Waterplane. The Association wishes them the best of luck with this project.

Harry Hawker was one of the early seaplane/floatplane pilots and together with Tom Sopwith successfully pioneered aviation through its early days. Long may the name Hawker be remembered for the contribution made to aviation by the man and the Hawker Company. It is fitting that the Commemorative flight should be undertaken in a historic aircraft, the oldest UK based aircraft capable of land and sea operations.”

– Ambrose Barber, CEng FRAeS, Chairman

“In 1913 Flight reported on the exploits of Harry Hawker in his attempt to circuit Britain in a Sopwith designed seaplane. A hundred years later Flight International, the successor to Flight, looks forward to proudly reporting on the crew flying G-PBYA, the Duxford based Catalina of Plane Sailing Air Display Ltd, as they commemorate the 100th Anniversary of Harry Hawker’s 1913 flight. They are wished every success flying a historic aircraft in this 1500 mile adventure.”

– Murdo Morrison MRAeS, Editor

“The stories of Harry Hawker and Tommy Sopwith are inextricably linked with that of Brooklands. It was at Brooklands that both Sopwith and Hawker learned to fly, and at Brooklands where Hawker, as Chief Test Pilot to Sopwith’s company, conducted the first flights of many of the thousands of aircraft assembled here from kits built at the Sopwith factories in nearby Kingston upon Thames. Hawker was also to set many records at Brooklands and he helped to develop and test here aircraft such as the Sopwith “Atlantic” with which he and Kenneth Mackenzie-Grieve made an unsuccessful attempt to fly the Atlantic in May 1919.

So Brooklands Museum, which holds one of the largest extent archives of Hawker aviation material and a number of historic Hawker aircraft, is pleased to endorse the initiative of the crew flying G-PBYA, the Duxford-based Consolidated Catalina of Plane Sailing Air Displays Ltd, as they commemorate the 100th Anniversary of Harry Hawker’s 1913 attempt to fly around Britain in a seaplane. Although the 1913 seaplane flight could not, for obvious reasons, start here, Hawker’s attempt at a circumnavigation of the British Isles was very much in the Spirit of Brooklands which the Museum celebrates. We wish the crew of the Catalina all success in their mission 100 years later.”

– Allan Winn BE(Mech) FRAeS, Director

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