B. C. Hucks: the first English airman to fly upside-down
Extract from  B.C. Hucks Souvenir and programme, Bradford, Yorkshire, April 22nd , 23rd and 25th 1914
an eventful career    By J. C. SAVAGE

'Bentfield C Hucks was born at Bentfield, Essex, in 1884. His father was a consulting engineer, so it was not surprising that engineering would claim his attention. But ordinary engineering proved too dull and uninspiring: Mr Hucks longed for excitement, and so we find  him shortly entering the motoring business, where he soon established a record for skilful driving. He may have remained a motorist - but for the fact that he was fined £50 for fast driving and had his licence suspended for three years, this very effectually checking his motoring career, and as aviation was the only opening left for one of Mr Huck’s activity, he decided to take up flying as his profession'.

The original we used for our  facsimile was recovered from a skip by Peter Robinson, an aviation historian, sculptor / modelmaker.
B. C. Hucks own diagram of LOOPING THE LOOP
Aerobatics Programme 1914
To preserve the fragile integrity of the original we painstakingly  re-set all of the text word for word and line for line, using the same Times Roman type face of the original.
The cover was almost a total loss and for our publication we have replaced it using a full colour illustration by John, based upon the few tattered scraps that remained.
B. C. Hucks almost ready to go in his Bleriot XI

'He received his early training from that master hand Claude Graham-White, being associated with him in all the excitement of the London to Manchester flights, and the Blackpool, Bournemouth and Wolverhampton flying meetings. Then in 1910 Mr Hucks accompanied Mr Graham-White to America, where the latter won all the big prizes, including the Gordon Bennet Cup.

On returning to England, Mr Hucks was engaged to test an experimental machine — the Blackburn Monoplane — at Filey, in Yorkshire, and there made many notable flights. It was here that he obtained his pilot's certificate from the Royal Aero Club, incidentally having his nerve for the first time severely tested, for on the last circuit of the qualifying flights the propeller of his monoplane flew off in mid air, bringing his machine down with a crash. The monoplane was wrecked, but beyond a few scratches Mr Hucks was uninjured, and was flying again as soon as the machine could be repaired'.
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