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Francis Ronald Swain
Air Commodore Francis Ronald Downs Swain, (31 August 1903 – 28 September 1989) was a British Royal Air Force pilot who held the World Altitude Record for airplanes from 1936 to 1938. Early life and career Swain was born on 31 August 1903 and was the fourth and youngest child of Charles Swain and Rose Downs. He grew up in Portsmouth and joined the RAF in 1922, becoming a member of No. 2 Squadron RAF as a pilot. He was quickly transferred to No. 11 Squadron, subsequently spending time with No. 23 Squadron and No. 6 Squadron as a Flight Commander, commanding the Cairo-Rhodesia Flight in 1933. World altitude record In 1935, now with the rank of squadron leader, Swain became a test pilot in the experimental section at the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) where he was involved in high-altitude experiments. Departing from Farnborough, Hampshire at 07:30 on 28 September 1936, Swain achieved a fixed-wing aircraft's world altitude record with a height of 49,967 ft in a modi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southsea
Southsea is a seaside resort and a geographic area of Portsmouth, Portsea Island in the ceremonial county of Hampshire, England. Southsea is located 1.8 miles (2.8 km) to the south of Portsmouth's inner city-centre. Southsea began as a fashionable 19th-century Victorian era, Victorian seaside resort named ''Croxton Town'', after a Mr Croxton who owned the land. As the resort grew, it adopted the name of nearby Southsea Castle, a seafront fort constructed in 1544 to help defend the Solent and approaches to Portsmouth Harbour. In 1879, South Parade Pier was opened by Princess Edward of Saxe-Weimar in Southsea. The pier began operating a passenger steamer service across the Solent to the Isle of Wight. This service gave rise to the idea of linking Southsea and its pier to Portsmouth Direct Line, Portsmouth's railway line, and for tourists to bypass the busy town of Portsmouth and its crowded harbour. East Southsea railway station, along with the Southsea Railway and Fratton ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bristol Type 138
The Bristol Type 138 High Altitude Monoplane was a British high-altitude single-engine, low-wing monoplane research aircraft developed and produced by the Bristol Aeroplane Company during the 1930s. It set nine world altitude records, with the maximum altitude achieved being on 30 June 1937, during a 2¼-hour flight. A second aircraft, designated as the Type 138B, was ordered in 1935 but work was abandoned during 1937 without it having flown. Development The Type 138 was built during a period of intense competition between aviation manufacturers. Prestige and useful technological progress came from breaking major aviation records, such as airspeed, distance and altitude but by the 1930s, the resources and development work necessary to achieve these records was beyond individual companies, and required government assistance.Barnes 1964, p. 253. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Aviation Record Holders
British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture * British English, the English language as spoken and written in United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and, more broadly, throughout the British Isles * Celtic Britons, an ancient ethno-linguistic group * Brittonic languages, a branch of the Insular Celtic language family (formerly called British) ** Common Brittonic, an ancient language Other uses *People or things associated with: ** Great Britain, an island ** British Isles, an island group ** United Kingdom, a sovereign state ** British Empire, a historical global colonial empire ** Kingdom of Great Britain (1707–1800) ** United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801–1922) * British Raj, colonial India under the British Empire * British Hong Kong, colonial Ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flight Altitude Record Holders
Flight or flying is the motion of an object through an atmosphere, or through the vacuum of space, without contacting any planetary surface. This can be achieved by generating aerodynamic lift associated with gliding or propulsive thrust, aerostatically using buoyancy, or by ballistic movement. Many things can fly, from animal aviators such as birds, bats and insects, to natural gliders/parachuters such as patagial animals, anemochorous seeds and ballistospores, to human inventions like aircraft (airplanes, helicopters, airships, balloons, etc.) and rockets which may propel spacecraft and spaceplanes. The engineering aspects of flight are the purview of aerospace engineering which is subdivided into aeronautics, the study of vehicles that travel through the atmosphere, and astronautics, the study of vehicles that travel through space, and ballistics, the study of the flight of projectiles. Types of flight Buoyant flight Humans have managed to construct lighter-than ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Commanders Of The Order Of The British Empire
Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank as well as a job title in many armies. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countries, this naval rank is termed as a frigate captain. Commander is also a generic term for an officer commanding any armed forces unit, such as " platoon commander", " brigade commander" and " squadron commander". In the police, terms such as " borough commander" and " incident commander" are used. Commander as a naval and air force rank Commander is a rank used primarily in navies, and is very rarely used as a rank in armies. In most armies, the term "commander" is used as a job title. For example, in the US Army, an officer with the rank of captain ( NATO rank code OF-2) may hold the title of "company commander", whereas an officer with the rank of lieutenant colonel ( NATO rank code OF-4) typically holds the title of " battalion comm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Companions Of The Order Of The Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by King George I of Great Britain, George I on 18 May 1725. Recipients of the Order are usually senior British Armed Forces, military officers or senior Civil Service (United Kingdom), civil servants, and the monarch awards it on the advice of His Majesty's Government. The name derives from an elaborate medieval ceremony for preparing a candidate to receive his knighthood, of which ritual bathing (as a symbol of Ritual purification, purification) was an element. While not all knights went through such an elaborate ceremony, knights so created were known as "knights of the Bath". George I constituted the Knights of the Bath as a regular Order (honour), military order. He did not revive the order, which did not previously exist, in the sense of a body of knights governed by a set of statutes and whose numbers were replenished when vacancies occurred. The Order consists of the Sovereign of the United King ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Aviators
English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish term for non-Amish, regardless of ethnicity * English studies, the study of English language and literature Media * ''English'' (2013 film), a Malayalam-language film * ''English'' (novel), a Chinese book by Wang Gang ** ''English'' (2018 film), a Chinese adaptation * ''The English'' (TV series), a 2022 Western-genre miniseries * ''English'' (play), a 2022 play by Sanaz Toossi People and fictional characters * English (surname), a list of people and fictional characters * English Fisher (1928–2011), American boxing coach * English Gardner (born 1992), American track and field sprinter * English McConnell (1882–1928), Irish footballer * Aiden English, a ring name of Matthew Rehwoldt (born 1987), American former professional wrestler ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Air Force Air Commodores
Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family or royalty Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Royal, Iowa, a city * Royal, Missouri, an unincorporated community * Royal, Nebraska, a village * Royal, Franklin County, North Carolina, an unincorporated area * Royal, Utah, a ghost town * Royal, West Virginia, an unincorporated community * Royal Gorge, on the Arkansas River in Colorado * Royal Township (other) Elsewhere * Mount Royal, a hill in Montreal, Canada * Royal Canal, Dublin, Ireland * Royal National Park, New South Wales, Australia Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Royal'' (Jesse Royal album), 2021 * Royal (Ayo album), 2020 * ''The Royal'', a British medical drama television series * '' The Royal Magazine'', a monthly British literary magazine published between 1898 and 1939 * '' The Raja Saab'', working title ''Royal' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1989 Deaths
1989 was a turning point in political history with the " Revolutions of 1989" which ended communism in Eastern Bloc of Europe, starting in Poland and Hungary, with experiments in power-sharing coming to a head with the opening of the Berlin Wall in November, the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia and the overthrow of the communist dictatorship in Romania in December; the movement ended in December 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Revolutions against communist governments in Eastern Europe mainly succeeded, but the year also saw the suppression by the Chinese government of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing. It was the year of the first Brazilian direct presidential election in 29 years, since the end of the military government in 1985 that ruled the country for more than twenty years, and marked the redemocratization process's final point. F. W. de Klerk was elected as State President of South Africa, and his regime gradually dismantled th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1903 Births
Events January * January 1 – Edward VII is proclaimed Emperor of India. * January 10 – The Aceh Sultanate was fully annexed by the Dutch East Indies, Dutch forces, deposing the last sultan, marking the end of the Aceh War that have lasted for almost 30 years. * January 19 – The first west–east transatlantic radio broadcast is made from the United States to England (the first east–west broadcast having been made in 1901#December, 1901). February * February 13 – Venezuelan crisis of 1902–03, Venezuelan crisis: After agreeing to arbitration in Washington, the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy reach a settlement with Venezuela resulting in the Washington Protocols. The naval blockade that began in 1902 ends. * February 23 – Cuba leases Guantánamo Bay to the United States "in perpetuity". March * March 2 – In New York City, the Martha Washington Hotel, the first hotel exclusively for women, opens. * March 3 – The British Admir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
