The Lakes Flying Company was an early British aircraft manufacturer of seaplanes based at

Windermere Windermere (historically Winder Mere) is a ribbon lake in Cumbria, England, and part of the Lake District. It is the largest lake in England by length, area, and volume, but considerably smaller than the List of lakes and lochs of the United Ki ...

. In 1914 it was taken over by the Northern Aircraft Company Limited. A registered charity The Lakes Flying Company Ltd was established in 2010, "to celebrate and to inform the public concerning the importance of the innovative contributions made to the development of naval and civil marine aeroplanes by Captain Edward Wakefield and by Waterbird".

History

The first product of the Lakes Flying Company was the Lakes Water Bird, which first flew on 25 November 1911 but was destroyed in March 1912 when the Hangar collapsed in a gale. The Water Bird was the first successful British seaplane. It was followed by two further aircraft, the Water Hen and

Sea Bird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adaptation, adapted to life within the marine ecosystem, marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent ...

. The final design was the Hydro-monoplane. The seaplanes performed many pleasure flights from the Lake for the general public. In November 1914 the company was bought by the Northern Aircraft Company and the lakeside facility was expanded and pilot training (advertised as The Seaplane School) as well as pleasure flights were undertaken. One of the pilots of the Northern Aircraft Company was

John Lankester Parker John Lankester Parker OBE FRAeS Hon. MSLAE (1896 – 22 August 1965) was Chief test pilot, Test Pilot for Short Brothers from 1918 until his retirement in 1945. He joined Shorts in 1916 in aviation, 1916 as a part-time test pilot and assistant ...

, who became Chief Test Pilot for the

Short Brothers Short Brothers plc, usually referred to as Shorts or Short, is an aerospace company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Shorts was founded in 1908 in London, and was the first company in the world to make production aeroplanes. It was particu ...

company in

Rochester, Kent Rochester ( ) is a town in the unitary authority of Medway, in Kent, England. It is at the lowest bridging point of the River Medway, about east-southeast of London. The town forms a conurbation with neighbouring towns Chatham, Kent, Chatham, ...

and later

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

, Northern Ireland.

Aircraft

* 1911 Lakes Water Bird * 1912 Lakes Water Hen * 1912

Lakes Sea Bird The Lakes Sea Bird was a two-seat floatplane built during 1912 by the Lakes Flying Company using the fuselage of the Avro Duigan which had been built by Avro for John Robertson Duigan. It gave many visitors to Windermere their first flight in ...

* 1914 Lakes Hydro-monoplane

References

Notes

Bibliography

* * Defunct aircraft manufacturers of England Companies based in Cumbria 1914 disestablishments in England 1911 establishments in England British companies disestablished in 1914 British companies established in 1911 {{England-hist-stub