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Billing

E. Billing


History

Eardley Delauny Billing was born in 1873 in Kensington, London, the son of Charles Eardley Billing, a Birmingham iron-founder, and his wife, Annie Emilia Claridge, and the elder brother of Noel Pemberton Billing.

The Billing tractor biplane was constructed at Brooklands during 1911 using the wings of the Voisin pusher of C.A. Moreing. The engine was a 40 h.p. ENV Type D. It was originally flown with an uncovered fuselage but fabric was added later. Billing was, at that time, in charge of the Lane Gliding School at Brooklands and for a brief period at the begining of 1912 was in charge of the Deperdussin School at Brooklands.

The machine was in use from May 1911 to the end of the season, becoming nicknamed the 'Oozley Bird'. Eardley and his wife Ada also ran the Bluebird restaurant at Brooklands until its closure at the outbreak of war. Billing had previously made a ground trainer, the Eardley Billing Oscillator, at Brooklands which was exhibited at the Stanley Show in November 1910.

The Billing biplane was crashed on 4 October 1911 by N.S. Percival, who rebuilt it as the Percival Parseval I at the end of 1911.

Eardley Billing died in Colchester in December 1915.

Company References
  1. British Aircraft Before The Great War, Michael H. Goodall and Albert E. Tagg (Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 2001)




Project Data top

Project No
Type No
Name
Alternative Name(s)
Year
Spec
Status
Qty
Description
References
     Biplane  (Oozley or Ouseley Bird)  1911    Proto  1  1S, 1E biplane  1,2,3

Project References
  1. British Aircraft Before The Great War, Michael H. Goodall and Albert E. Tagg (Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 2001)
  2. British Aircraft 1809-1914, Peter Lewis (Putnam, 1962)
  3. Flight, 26 Nov 1910



Production Data

   Total Billing Production     1   

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