A flight lieutenant’s pocket racer

Flight Lieutenant Nicholas Comper had already designed light aircraft for the Cranwell flying club when he left the RAF in 1929 and formed the Comper Aircraft Company at Hooton Park near Ellesmere Port, with his brother Adrian among the directors. His first product was the Comper Swift, a tiny single-seat high-wing monoplane designed to give the pilot a clear view and two-seater performance on a small engine. The prototype flew at Hooton in January 1930.

Nine days to Darwin

The Swift was a hit with sporting pilots. Arthur Butler flew one from England to Darwin in just over nine days in 1931; another, owned by the Prince of Wales and flown by Edward Fielden, came second in the 1932 King’s Cup, and the young Alex Henshaw won the Siddeley Trophy in a Swift in 1933. Swifts appeared in every King’s Cup from 1930 to 1937 and were still racing in the 1950s. About 45 were built.

An expensive move south

In 1932 Comper built the prototype Cierva C.25 autogyro using Swift parts. In March 1933 the firm moved to Heston near London, where it built single examples of the Mouse, Streak and Kite. Few sold in the Depression, and in August 1934 Nick Comper and most of the board resigned. On 10 August the company became Heston Aircraft.

工場

• Hooton Park works · near Ellesmere Port, Cheshire — 1929–1933
• Heston works · Heston Aerodrome, Middlesex — 1933–1934

人々

• Nicholas Comper · founder, designer — Former RAF flight lieutenant
• Arthur Butler · pilot — England to Darwin in a Swift in 1931
• Alex Henshaw · pilot — Won the 1933 Siddeley Trophy in a Swift

記録と初記録

• England to Darwin in just over nine days, Arthur Butler, Swift G-ABRE, 1931
• Second place, 1932 King’s Cup, Prince of Wales’s Swift