14 Facts About Alan Cobham

Sir Alan John Cobham, KBE, AFC was an English aviation pioneer.

Alan Cobham began work as a teenage commercial apprentice in the City of London.

Alan Cobham enjoyed the outdoors, and after completing his apprenticeship spent a year working on his uncle's farm, hoping to make a career in estate management.

Alan Cobham served on the Western Front from 1914 to 1917.

Alan Cobham dealt mainly with injured horses, and attained the rank of Staff Veterinary Sergeant.

On 25 November 1926, Alan Cobham attempted but failed to be the first person to deliver mail to New York City by air from the east, planning to fly mail from the White Star ocean liner RMS Homeric in a de Havilland DH.

Alan Cobham starred as himself in the 1927 British war film The Flight Commander directed by Maurice Elvey.

Alan Cobham wrote his own contemporary accounts of his flights, and recalls them in his biography.

In 1929 Alan Cobham mounted his first tour of Britain, called the Municipal Aerodrome Campaign.

Alan Cobham declared the tour to have been a great success.

Alan Cobham closed the circus within weeks of a mid-air disaster in which two of his planes collided over Blackpool on 7 September 1935.

Alan Cobham was one of the founding directors of Airspeed Limited, the aircraft manufacturing company started by Nevil Shute Norway, together with the designer Hessell Tiltman; who, having been discharged by the Airship Guarantee Company after the R101 disaster caused the grounding of the more successful R100, decided to found their own small aircraft business.

Alan Cobham retired to the British Virgin Islands, but returned to England, where he died in 1973.

Alan Cobham he formed is still active in the aviation industry as Cobham plc.