{"id":23217816,"date":"2026-09-18T11:53:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T09:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/harry-hawker-sopwith-test-pilot-spin-recovery-atlantic-1919\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T11:54:05","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T09:54:05","slug":"harry-hawker-sopwith-test-pilot-spin-recovery-atlantic-1919","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/de\/harry-hawker-sopwith-test-pilot-spin-recovery-atlantic-1919\/","title":{"rendered":"Harry Hawker: The Mechanic Who Gave Hawker Its Name"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Hawker Aircraft built the Hurricane, the Typhoon, the Tempest, the Hunter and the Harrier. The name is stamped on some of the most important aeroplanes Britain ever produced.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>It is not the name of a British aristocrat or an engineer knighted for it. It belonged to a blacksmith&rsquo;s son from Melbourne who left school at eleven to work in a garage, and who was dead at 32.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Harry Hawker learned to fly in three lessons. He was the first person to deliberately put an aeroplane into a spin and get it out again. And in 1919 the world spent six days believing he had drowned in the Atlantic.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f5f5f5;padding:20px 22px;margin:24px 0\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;font-size:17px;color:#1a1a1a\">Quick Facts<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>Name:<\/strong> Harry George Hawker, MBE, AFC<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>Born:<\/strong> 22 January 1889, Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>Died:<\/strong> 12 July 1921, Burnt Oak near Hendon, aged 32<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>Job:<\/strong> Chief test pilot, Sopwith Aviation Company<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>Licence:<\/strong> Royal Aero Club certificate No. 297, September 1912, after three lessons<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>First record:<\/strong> Michelin Cup for endurance, 24 October 1912, a flight of 8 hours 23 minutes<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>Best known for:<\/strong> The first intentional spin and recovery, in 1914<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>Legacy:<\/strong> Co-founded H.G. Hawker Engineering in 1920, renamed Hawker Aircraft in 1933<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Eleven Years Old, Five Shillings a Week<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Hawker was born in 1889 at Moorabbin in Victoria, second son of George Hawker, a blacksmith. At eleven he was working at a Melbourne garage building engines for five shillings a week. He moved to the Tarrant Motor and Engineering Company, qualified as a mechanic, and by 1907 was working as a chauffeur and mechanic in western Victoria.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>In 1910 he travelled to Diggers Rest, outside Melbourne, to watch the first public demonstrations of powered flight in Australia. That settled it. He went to England in May 1911 to work in aviation.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>It did not go smoothly at first. He took jobs with Commer, then Mercedes, then Austro Daimler, and spent every spare hour at Brooklands, which was where British aviation actually happened. In June 1912 he got a job as a mechanic with the Sopwith Aviation Company.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>He talked Tom Sopwith into teaching him to fly. He went solo after three lessons.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/sopwith-tabloid-biplane.jpg\" alt=\"A Sopwith Tabloid biplane of the type Harry Hawker helped design and demonstrated in Australia\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The Sopwith Tabloid, which Hawker helped design and then took home to Australia in 1914 to demonstrate. A crowd nearly wrecked it, and he finished the job himself while stunting. Photo: Library of Congress.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Spin<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>By October 1912, a month after getting his licence, Hawker won the Michelin Cup with an endurance flight of 8 hours 23 minutes. In June 1913 he set a series of altitude records. In August that year he won a &pound;1,000 consolation prize in the Daily Mail Circuit of Britain waterplane race.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>But the thing he did in 1914 mattered more than any of it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Spinning was killing pilots. An aeroplane that dropped a wing and began to rotate went down, and the men in them did not come back, and nobody could satisfactorily explain why. It was treated as something close to a curse.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/harry-hawker-portrait.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"flex-shrink:0\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/harry-hawker-portrait.jpg\" alt=\"Harry Hawker\" style=\"width:96px;height:96px;border-radius:50%;object-fit:cover;object-position:top;display:block;border:2px solid #ddd\"><\/a><div><em>&ldquo;He also appears to have been the first person to perform an intentional spin and recovery, demonstrating one method to return to level flight from this unusual attitude. Because spins had killed several pilots, this was a major advance in aviation safety.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Harry Hawker<\/strong> &mdash; Australian aviation pioneer and Sopwith chief test pilot, as recorded in contemporary accounts of his 1914 demonstration<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Hawker put an aeroplane into a spin on purpose and flew it out again, then showed other people how. The technique he demonstrated is not quite the one taught today, but the important part was not the method. It was the demonstration that a spin was a recoverable flight condition rather than a death sentence.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/igI0UdwR-8E\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><em style=\"font-size:14px;color:#777\">A modern tribute marking a century since Hawker\u2019s intentional spin.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Atlantic<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>In 1919 the Daily Mail was offering &pound;10,000 to the first crew to fly the Atlantic in 72 consecutive hours. Hawker and his navigator, Kenneth Mackenzie Grieve, took off from Mount Pearl in Newfoundland on 18 May in a Sopwith biplane built for the attempt and named, with no great imagination, Atlantic.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Somewhere around the twelfth hour the engine cooling system was giving persistent trouble. They had a choice: press on over empty ocean and burn what power they had left, or turn and fly diagonally across the shipping lanes in the hope of finding something.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/sopwith-atlantic-1919-transatlantic-biplane.jpg\" alt=\"The Sopwith Atlantic biplane built for the 1919 transatlantic attempt\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The Sopwith Atlantic. Hawker and Grieve jettisoned its undercarriage after take-off to save drag. Fishermen later recovered the wheels off Newfoundland. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1a7f37;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;When we were about 12&frac12; hours on our way the circulation system was still giving trouble, and we realised we could not go on using up our motor power. Then it was that we reached the fateful decision to play for safety. We changed course, and began to fly diagonally across the main shipping route for about 2&frac12; hours, when, to our great relief, we sighted the Danish steamer, which proved to be the tramp Mary.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Harry Hawker<\/strong> &mdash; His own account of the ditching, published in Flight, 29 May 1919<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>They fired Very light distress signals, flew two miles ahead of the ship and put the aeroplane down in the water. The Mary picked them up.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The Mary had no working radio.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>For six days nobody on land knew anything. Two men had gone out over the Atlantic and not arrived, and there was no reason to assume anything except the obvious. It was only when the steamer reached the Butt of Lewis in Scotland on 25 May that a signal station asked the passing ship whether it was Hawker aboard, and got back a single word: yes.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The Daily Mail gave them &pound;5,000 anyway. Hawker named his second daughter Mary, after the ship.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4fNh6k2U7p0\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><em style=\"font-size:14px;color:#777\">The 1919 transatlantic race, and what it cost the men who tried it.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">How a Mechanic\u2019s Name Ended Up on a Hurricane<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>In September 1920 Sopwith Aviation was liquidated. The war contracts were over and there was a real fear that the government would come after wartime aircraft manufacturers with a retrospective tax bill large enough to destroy them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Tom Sopwith, Harry Hawker, Fred Sigrist and Bill Eyre each put in &pound;5,000 and started again. To avoid any claim attaching to the new company, they could not call it Sopwith. So they called it H.G. Hawker Engineering, after the test pilot. It became Hawker Aircraft in 1933.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;To avoid any muddle if we had gone on building aeroplanes and called them Sopwiths, there was bound to be a muddle somewhere, we called the company the Hawker Company. I didn&rsquo;t mind. He was largely responsible for our growth during the war.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Tom Sopwith<\/strong> &mdash; On why the new company carried Hawker\u2019s name rather than his own<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Hawker had less than a year to enjoy it. On 12 July 1921 he was practising at Hendon for the Aerial Derby in a Nieuport Goshawk when the aircraft crashed at Burnt Oak, near Edgware. He was 32.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The medical examination suggested he had suffered a haemorrhage and had been trying to get the aircraft back on the ground. Fire in the air and spinal tuberculosis were both considered contributing factors. The King sent a message of condolence saying the nation had lost one of its most distinguished airmen.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NyK5rXmW7_E\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><em style=\"font-size:14px;color:#777\">Inside the Hawker Hurricane factory. The name on the aircraft belonged to a man who had been dead for nearly twenty years.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">What Is Left<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>He is buried at St Paul&rsquo;s Church, Hook, in Chessington. Australia Post put him on a stamp in 1978. Moorabbin Airport was renamed Moorabbin (Harry Hawker) Airport in 1989. Kingston University named a building after him in 2007. His old primary school has a house named Hawker.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>And every Hurricane that flew in the Battle of Britain, every Typhoon over Normandy, every Hunter and every Harrier, carried the surname of an Australian blacksmith&rsquo;s son who built engines for five shillings a week and learned to fly in three lessons.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><em>Sources: Muriel Hawker, H. G. Hawker, airman: his life and work, 1922; L. K. Blackmore, Hawker: A Biography; Flight, 29 May 1919; The New York Times, 13 July 1921; Australian Dictionary of Biography; The Automobile, September 2007<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<style>.mfq{margin:34px 0 8px}.mfq h2{font:26px\/1.3 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117;padding-top:22px;margin:0 0 6px}.mfq .qa details{border-top:1px solid #5C91FF;margin:0;padding:0}.mfq .qa details:last-of-type{border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee}.mfq .qa summary{cursor:pointer;list-style:none;display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:center;gap:16px;padding:22px 26px;font:18px\/1.7 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117}.mfq .qa summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mfq .qa summary::after{content:\"+\";font:24px Helvetica,sans-serif;color:#3568e0;flex:0 0 auto}.mfq .qa details[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mfq .qa details:hover summary{color:#3568e0}.mfq .qa .a{font:16px\/1.7 \"Gilroy regular\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#454e5e;padding:0 26px 24px}.mfq .qa .a a{color:#3568e0}@media(max-width:680px){.mfq .qa summary{padding:18px 14px;font-size:17px}.mfq .qa .a{padding:0 14px 20px}}<\/style>\r\n\r\n\r\n<section class=\"mfq\"><h2>Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2><div class=\"qa\"><details open><summary>Who was Harry Hawker?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">An Australian aviation pioneer, born in Moorabbin, Victoria in 1889, who became chief test pilot for the Sopwith Aviation Company and co-founded the firm that became Hawker Aircraft. He died in a crash at Hendon in 1921, aged 32.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Is Hawker Aircraft named after Harry Hawker?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Yes. When Sopwith Aviation was liquidated in 1920, Tom Sopwith, Harry Hawker, Fred Sigrist and Bill Eyre founded H.G. Hawker Engineering, deliberately avoiding the Sopwith name to prevent claims relating to wartime contracts. It was renamed Hawker Aircraft in 1933.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Did Harry Hawker invent spin recovery?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">He appears to have been the first person to perform an intentional spin and recover from it, in 1914, and demonstrated a method for returning to level flight. The technique is generally not the one used today, but spins had been killing pilots, so establishing that recovery was possible was a major safety advance.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>What happened during Harry Hawker\u2019s Atlantic attempt?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">On 18 May 1919 Hawker and navigator Kenneth Mackenzie Grieve left Newfoundland in the Sopwith Atlantic, chasing a &pound;10,000 Daily Mail prize. After about fourteen and a half hours the engine cooling system failed. They ditched beside the Danish steamer Mary, which had no radio, so they were presumed dead for six days.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How long did it take Harry Hawker to learn to fly?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Three lessons. He persuaded Tom Sopwith to teach him after joining Sopwith Aviation as a mechanic in June 1912, and was awarded Royal Aero Club certificate number 297 that September. The following month he won the Michelin Cup with a flight of 8 hours 23 minutes.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How did Harry Hawker die?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">On 12 July 1921 his Nieuport Goshawk crashed at Burnt Oak near Hendon while he was practising for the Aerial Derby. Doctors believed he had suffered a haemorrhage and was attempting to land. Fire in the air and spinal tuberculosis were considered contributing factors.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>What aircraft carry the Hawker name?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Among many others, the Hurricane, Typhoon, Tempest, Sea Fury, Hunter and Harrier. All were built by the company founded in 1920 and named after a test pilot who had died in 1921.<\/div><\/details><\/div><\/section>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Who was Harry Hawker?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"An Australian aviation pioneer, born in Moorabbin, Victoria in 1889, who became chief test pilot for the Sopwith Aviation Company and co-founded the firm that became Hawker Aircraft. He died in a crash at Hendon in 1921, aged 32.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Is Hawker Aircraft named after Harry Hawker?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Yes. When Sopwith Aviation was liquidated in 1920, Tom Sopwith, Harry Hawker, Fred Sigrist and Bill Eyre founded H.G. Hawker Engineering, deliberately avoiding the Sopwith name to prevent claims relating to wartime contracts. It was renamed Hawker Aircraft in 1933.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Did Harry Hawker invent spin recovery?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"He appears to have been the first person to perform an intentional spin and recover from it, in 1914, and demonstrated a method for returning to level flight. The technique is generally not the one used today, but spins had been killing pilots, so establishing that recovery was possible was a major safety advance.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What happened during Harry Hawker\u2019s Atlantic attempt?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"On 18 May 1919 Hawker and navigator Kenneth Mackenzie Grieve left Newfoundland in the Sopwith Atlantic, chasing a &pound;10,000 Daily Mail prize. After about fourteen and a half hours the engine cooling system failed. 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Fire in the air and spinal tuberculosis were considered contributing factors.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What aircraft carry the Hawker name?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Among many others, the Hurricane, Typhoon, Tempest, Sea Fury, Hunter and Harrier. All were built by the company founded in 1920 and named after a test pilot who had died in 1921.\"}}]}<\/script><div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/sopwith-camel-wwi-deadliest-fighter-to-both-sides\/\">The Sopwith Camel: Deadly to the Enemy, Deadlier to Novices<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/hawker-p-1081-australian-fighter-trevor-wimpy-wade\/\">Hawker P.1081: The Australian Fighter Australia Never Bought<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/hawker-sea-fury-mig-15-korea-last-piston-fighter\/\">The Piston Fighter That Shot Down a Jet<\/a><\/p><\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He left school at eleven, learned to fly in three lessons, was the first man to spin an aeroplane deliberately and recover, and was mourned as dead for six days in 1919.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":23217390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[665,666],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23217816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aviation-world","category-history-and-legends"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Harry Hawker: The Man Behind the Hawker Name | MiGFlug<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Harry Hawker learned to fly in three lessons, was first to spin an aeroplane deliberately and recover, and gave his name to the Hurricane.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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