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nine-day period.


In June, during the TT motorcycle event on the Isle of Man, he flew in the special TT editions of Motorcycle magazine. Between 21st and 26th August Henderson took part in Bournemouth’s Summer Aviation Race Meeting. During it he carried a Miss June up to 1,500 feet from where she made a parachute descent.


In September he attended the British Light


S F Edge – Henderson bought a Napier car from him (Brooklands Museum).


fly. The Federation asked the Trade Union Coun- cil to contact the then Labour Secretary of State for Air Lord Thompson. Thompson arranged a meeting and Henderson led the Federation’s team. It was a very acrimonious gathering. Seeing this, Sir Samuel Intone suggested that a trusted intermediary should be chosen to adjudicate the issue. Strangely both sides agreed. Once the dis- pute was over the pilots disbanded the Federation as they no longer wished to be associated with the TUC and its working class origins.


Flight magazine of 26th March 1925 reported that Henderson had invented a ‘self-filling automatic doper’, that made the starting of aero- engines more reliable. The device was fitted to the aeroplane that Alan Cobham and Sir Sefton Banker flew to India. It caused Cobham to say, “it never let us down I don’t know why planes aren’t fitted with it”.


General Strike


Between 4th and 13th May 1926 the TUC called a General Strike and many aero clubs were used to distribute national newspapers. Among these pilots was Henderson who flew a total of 5,046 miles, approximately 50 hours flying, during the


39


Aeroplane Development Meeting at Lympne. He intended to enter the Air Navigation and Engineer- ing Company of Addlestone’s Missel-Thrush in the Daily Mail’s Light Aeroplane Competition on the Sunday, but before a machine could do this it had to prove that it was a ‘Light Aeroplane’ by passing a series of eliminating tests. Sadly Henderson did not even get that far for, whilst taxying it out, it suffered an undercarriage failure which could not be repaired by the trial’s closing time. It was repaired in time to take part in the Grosvenor Cup Race which took place on the following Saturday, but he was not placed. In January 1927 Henderson established a flying school at Croydon Airport, from which a Mr Mason graduated with the Royal Aero Club Aviator’s Certificate 8058. In February Henderson converted the school into a public company. One of its functions was dealing in aeroplanes; one such deal involved purchasing an ultra-light ANEC II (G-EBJO) which he then modified by installing a more powerful engine and changing the undercarriage to improve its ground clearance. This was sold to a Mr Norman Jones who flew it in that year’s Bournemouth Easter and Whitsun Meetings and also raced it in the Hampshire Air Pageant. (This aeroplane now forms part of the Shuttleworth Collection.) Henderson also competed in Bournemouth’s Easter meeting. He entered the Poole Handicap on Good Friday (15th April) and came third. On the Saturday he entered the Winton Handicap Race for flying schools, then the Bournemouth and District Business Houses Sweepstake flying on behalf of South Western Hotels, but in both events he was unsuccessful. On Easter Monday he entered the Bournemouth and District Hotel and Restaurants Association Handicap Race representing the Central Hotel, the ‘Kill-Joy Trophy’, whose name was a mild protest against the fact there was no flying on Sunday, and came fifth. He next took part in the Holiday Final Handicap but was not placed. In between times he gave joy-rides to the public but in this he faced stiff competition from none other than Imperial Airways.


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