Yet another record for Smithy

Is it a bird or is it a plane? The Percival Gull was certainly a plane, but the question often asked is, was it Percival or Basil Henderson who designed it? The Gull 4 first appeared in 1932 and was a beautiful aeroplane that quickly established itself as a successful racing aeroplane though it had been designed as a three-place private ‘air taxi’.

The Gull was of traditional wood construction and, at a time when light aircraft tended to be biplanes or high-wing monoplanes with supporting struts, the Gull was a cantilevered monoplane. It also featured an ingenious wing-folding arrangement where the inner section of the mainplane hinged upwards in front of the flaps so that the aft section could be raised to allow the wing to be folded. The prototype was powered by a 4-cylinder 130hp Cirrus Hermes IV Inverted inline air-cooled engine, hence the numeral 4 after its name. Later versions were fitted with the 130hp Gypsy Major.

Edgar Wickner Percival was born in 1897 in Albury in the state of New South Wales, Australia and studied engineering at Sydney Technical College and also at Sydney University. His experiments with gliders were interrupted by WWI when he volunteered for the legendary Australian Light Horse Regiment where he soon became a Sergeant, serving in Palestine. In 1917 he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps, was commissioned and became a pilot with 111 Sqdn flying Nieuports and S.E.5a’s in Palestine and later in France.

He returned to Australia after the war, exporting two Avro 504Ks to run a successful aviation business. He was also a representative for A.V Roe and in 1929 accepted an offer to return to England as a test pilot for the Bristol Aeroplane company. Which is how he eventually ran into Henderson.

There would appear to be little doubt that the concept of a low-winged wooden aircraft with a lifting flap/folding wing came from Basil Henderson who patented the idea. Percival, as a test pilot, had flown a two-seat Henderson 302, and he raced it in the 1930 King’s Cup air race. He knew that a three-seat version of it was on the drawing board. The assumption is made that Percival thought he could produce a better version of what he had seen so he set up his own company and worked with R.H Bound to design an aircraft based on it. Whatever the truth of the matter, the Gull 4 outcome was a happy one for Percival and by 1933 he had set up the Percival Aircraft Company to cope with the burgeoning sales. He was joined by Arthur Bage as chief draughtsman and they set about designing the six-cylinder executive Vega Gull which was also to become a popular mount for long-distance fliers including Jean Batten. Throughout the 1930s Percival was a well-known and successful racing pilot and was a dynamic publicist. For his extraordinary flight of 2,300 miles in a Gull 6, from London to Oran and back in one day, he was awarded the 1936 Oswald Watt Gold Medal for the most significant contribution to aviation made by an Australian.

Charles Kingsford Smith was one of a number of the famous fliers to take the stick in a Percival aircraft. To help spread publicity for the Gull 4 “Smithy” agreed to deliver one to Australia and break the solo record. This he did in great style taking 7 days 4 hours flying the pale-blue G-ACJV “Miss Southern Cross” which he fitted with a huge extra fuel tank; this occupied the whole of the cabin behind the front seat. My painting shows the attractive machine banking steeply over Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1933.

To put the wooden Gull 4 into perspective, all-metal stressed skin cantilevered monoplanes were being built in America at that time, notably Jack Northrop’s pioneering Alpha of 1930. The Alpha was twice the weight and twice the engine power of the Gull. Sophisticated construction techniques developed by the Americans in the 1920s and 30s were not taken up in Britain. However, with the ingenuity displayed in the Gull and its offspring, if performance was anything to go by then at 145mph on 130 hp and a range of 640 miles at reasonable operating costs along with a purchase price of £1,250, Percival could claim to be a master of traditional aircraft-manufacturing techniques.

Above: The famous Northrop Alpha. Jack Northrop, referring to its revolutionary stressed skin construction rightly said of the monoplane “...the Alpha was really the pioneer of every aircraft in the sky today”. She weighed 4,500lb and was powered by a 450hp Pratt and Whitney nine-cylinder radial engine which gave a maximum speed of 170mph.

Percival’s manufacturing career certainly started on a high note with his little Gull 4. But, for many, the culmination of his achievements was the brilliant little Mew Gull racer, made famous by the renowned Alex Henshaw who flew his modified version to Cape Town and back in 1938 to create a record that stood for decades. Later, the speedy Vega Gull was adopted during World War II as a communications and wireless-training aircraft.

Percival’s place in Britain’s aviation history is a glowing one. He was one of a rare breed that combined the talents of pilot, designer, manufacturer and publicist. His efforts helped keep the aviation flag flying for Britain in the declining years of the Golden Years of aviation.