Martin and Handasyde

H. P. Martin and George Handasyde went into partnership in 1908. Their first monoplane lifted off the ground before a gale wrecked it, and for years they built monoplanes. It was a biplane, the S.1 scout of 1914, that made them. One S.1 gave rise to one of the war’s strangest stories: Captain Louis Strange fell out of his inverted Martinsyde while changing a Lewis gun drum, hung on to the gun, and climbed back in as the aircraft righted itself.

The Elephant

Renamed Martinsyde Ltd in 1915, the firm became Britain’s third-largest aircraft maker, with flight sheds at Brooklands and a big factory at Woking. Its G.100 and G.102 were so large for single-seaters that pilots called them the Elephant. Too clumsy to dogfight, they found a role as long-range day bombers and reconnaissance aircraft from 1916 to 1917; 271 were built, and No. 27 Squadron flew nothing else.

The Buzzard, the bikes and the fire

Handasyde’s F.4 Buzzard of 1918 reached 142 mph in its F.3 form and was judged a great advance on all existing fighting scouts. Orders for 1,450 followed, then the Armistice cancelled them, and the RAF chose the cheaper Snipe. Martinsyde sold Buzzards abroad and built over 2,000 motorcycles from 1919, until a fire destroyed the Woking factory in 1922 and forced it into liquidation.

Fábricas

• Brooklands · Weybridge, Surrey — Flight sheds
• Woking works · Woking, Surrey — Main factory, destroyed by fire in 1922

Gente

• George Handasyde · co-founder, designer — Designed the F.3 and F.4 Buzzard
• H. P. Martin · cofundador
• A. A. Fletcher · designer — Designed the G.100 Elephant
• Louis Strange · RFC pilot — Fell out of an S.1 in combat and climbed back in