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Alcock

J.W. Alcock


History

John (later Sir John) William Alcock was born on 5 November 1892 at Seymour Grove, Old Trafford, Stretford and attended St Thomas's primary school in Heaton Chapel, Stockport. He first became interested in flying at the age of seventeen and in 1910 he became an assistant to Works Manager Charles Fletcher, an early Manchester aviator and Norman Crossland, a motor engineer and founder of Manchester Aero Club. As a Captain in the Royal Air Force in 1917, while stationed at Moudros, on the island of Lemnos in the Aegean Sea, he conceived of and built a fighter aircraft out of the remains of other crashed aircraft. This came to be known as the Alcock Scout. Alcock was never to fly it as he was taken prisoner in September 1917, before the completion of the machine. It first flew in October, 1917, but was wrecked early in 1918.

On 14 June 1919, Alcock, together with navigator Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown, piloted the first non-stop transatlantic flight from St. John's, Newfoundland to Clifden, Connemara, Ireland.

On 18 December 1919 Alcock was flying a new Vickers Type 54 Viking to the first postwar aeronautical exhibition in Paris when he crashed in fog at Cote d'Everard, near Rouen, Normandy. He died before medical assistance arrived.

Company References
  1. British Aeroplanes 1914-18, J.M. Bruce (Putnam, 1957)




Project Data top

Project No
Type No
Name
Alternative Name(s)
Year
Spec (Requirement)
Status
Qty
Description
References
   A.1  Scout    1917    Proto  1  1S, 1E biplane fighter  1,2,3

Project References
  1. British Aeroplanes 1914-18, J.M. Bruce (Putnam, 1957)
  2. Warplanes of the First World War: Fighters, Vol.1, J.M. Bruce (McDonald, 1965)
  3. British Fighter Since 1912, Francis K. Mason (Putnam 1992)
  4. British Naval Aircraft since 1912, Owen Thetford (Putnam, 1978)



Production Data

One aircraft only, no c/n or serial.

   Total Alcock Production     1   

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V1.4.4 Created by Roger Moss. Last updated August 2020