Group Captain Geoffrey Mungo Buxton (b. 26
May 1906 in St Albans, Hertfordshire – d. 19 Nov 1979 in Norfolk) was educated at Harrow School, Harrow, and
in 1926 was commissioned in the Royal Air Force. In 1931, as a serving officer, he went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge,
to read Engineering. He gained first class honours in the Mechanical Science Tripos, going on to an appointment at Halton.
A founder member of the London Gliding Club, he is entered as No 5 in the Royal Aero Club list for having the A and B certificates.
He was the fourth British pilot to gain the C certificate It was Mungo Buxton who introduced Philip Wills, who had known from
Harrow, to gliding at Dunstable and the two of them bought a Scud II. Mungo Buxton set up a British sailplane height record of 8323ft in September, 1934, in the Scud. In making his successful
attempt from Sutton Bank in Yorkshire, Buxton made one of the first British thunderstorm flights. In 1934/35 he designed the
revolutionary Hjordis sailplane for Philip Wills, which Wills subsequently flew with distinction for the next three years.
His Hjordis 2 design of 1937 eventually emerged as the Slingsby Type 9 King Kite.
Mungo made his career with the RAF. In late 1934, he was appointed Engineering Officer to work on the first operating
flight of the pilotless aircraft, the Queen Bee. In 1940, then a Wing Commander, he led C Special Duty Flight, formed at RAF
Christchurch on the 21 June. The purpose was to determine whether the Worth Matravers radar station, which at that time was
the key research and development establishment for RDF as radar was then known, could detect inbound gliders.
Given
his considerable gliding background it was not too surprising that he found himself posted to Ringway, Manchester, as one
of the senior officers of the Central Landing Establishment where he was in charge of the technical and tactical development
unit. He was appointed Officer, Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) in 1946 and in 1954 he was appointed Air Force representative
of the Guided weapon Directorate of the Ministry of Supply until his retirement from the RAF in 1957. He was elected to Fellowship
of the Aeronautical Society the same year.
One Hjordis built by Slingsby with their c/n 215C,
registered BGA.242. Registered G-GAAA to Phillip A. Wills in 1937, then BGA.301 before being sold to South Africa as ZS-23
in 1938.