Alan Cobham

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Sir Alan John Cobham, KBE, AFC (May 6 1894- October 21 1973) was an English aviation pioneer.

A member of the Royal Flying Corps in World War I, Alan Cobham became famous as a pioneer of long distance aviation. After the war he became a test pilot for the de Havilland aircraft company. In 1921 he made a 5000 mile air tour of Europe, visiting 17 cities in 3 weeks. In 1924 he flew a Short Singapore flying boat around the continent of Africa landing only in British territory. In August 1926, he flew from England to Australia where 60,000 people swarmed across the grassy fields of Essendon Airport, Melbourne when he landed his DH-50 float plane (it had been converted to a wheeled undercarriage earlier, at Darwin<ref>Wonders of World Aviation, Vol 10, 1938</ref>). He was knighted the same year.

In 1932 he started the National Aviation Day displays - a combination of barnstorming and joyriding. This consisted of a team of up to fourteen aircraft, ranging ffrom single-seaters to modern airliners, and many skilled pilots. It toured the country, calling at hundreds of sites, some of them regular airfields and some just fields cleared for the occasion. Generally known as "Cobham's Flying Circus", it was hugely popular, giving thousands of people their first experience of flying, and bringing "air-mindedness" to the population. These continued until the end of the 1935 season.<ref>Arthur Ord-Hume, Aeroplane Monthly, August 1973</ref>

In the 1930s he pioneered inflight refueling. The company he formed is still active in the aviation industry as Cobham plc.