Out and back before dinner

One day in 1935 Edgar Percival took off from Gravesend at half past one in the morning, flew one of his own Gulls to Morocco, and landed back at Croydon that evening. He was the first pilot to fly from Britain to Africa and back in a single day, and it won him the Oswald Watt Gold Medal. That flight sums up the company that carried his name: fast, graceful aircraft, flown hard by the man who drew them.

A Light Horseman designs aeroplanes

Percival was born in Albury, New South Wales, in 1897, served as a trooper with the 7th Light Horse in Palestine, and came home with surplus aircraft for barnstorming and charter work. He won an Australian light aircraft design competition in 1924. Back in England from 1929 as an Air Ministry test pilot, he founded the Percival Aircraft Company with E. B. W. Leak in 1933. The first Gull flew in 1932, built for him by other firms; the company then moved to Gravesend Airport to make them itself, and in 1936 became Percival Aircraft Ltd and moved to Luton.

Gulls that crossed oceans

The Gull was a record machine. Charles Kingsford Smith flew one from Lympne to Darwin in 1933 in 7 days and 4 hours. Jean Batten crossed the South Atlantic to Brazil in her Gull Six in 1935 and flew Lympne to Darwin in 1936, and Amy Johnson flew to Cape Town and back in under eight days. The tiny Mew Gull racer, only five built, dominated British air racing; Alex Henshaw won the 1938 King’s Cup in one at 236 mph, a class record still standing in 2020.

From racers to trainers

War turned the Vega Gull into the Proctor radio and communications trainer, 1,143 built. Percival resigned from the board to serve in the RAF Volunteer Reserve and in 1944, when the company joined the Hunting Group, sold his remaining shares. Under new ownership Luton built the Prentice trainer, 526 built, the Prince and Pembroke twins, and the Provost, first flown on 24 February 1950, the RAF’s basic trainer of the 1950s. In 1954 the company was renamed Hunting Percival, and Edgar Percival started again with a new firm at Stapleford.

Fábricas

• Gravesend Airport · Gravesend, Kent — First own production of the Gull
• Luton works · Luton Airport, Bedfordshire — From 1936

Pessoas

• Edgar Percival · founder, designer and pilot — 1897–1984
• Jean Batten · record pilot — Gull Six G-ADPR
• Alex Henshaw · racing pilot — 1938 King’s Cup winner in a Mew Gull

Recordes e pioneirismos

• Kingsford Smith, Lympne to Darwin in a Gull Four, 7 days 4 hours 44 minutes, 1933
• Jean Batten, England to Brazil and Lympne to Darwin in a Gull Six, 1935 and 1936
• Amy Johnson, Gravesend to Cape Town and back to Croydon, 7 days 22 hours 43 minutes, 1936
• Alex Henshaw, 1938 King’s Cup in a Mew Gull at 236 mph, a class record