While the U.S. Pavilion has its Wright A replica proudly on display,
the UK's Smiths Industries (Hall 2, H12) is celebrating this aeronautical
anniversary year with a perhaps less-well known machine, the Boulton
& Paul P6. The full-size, non-flying representation is of
an experimental biplane which first flew in November 1918, but
was overtaken by the peaceful events of that month and relegated
to a company transport.
On 1 May 1919---the first day that civil aviation was permitted
in the United Kingdom after WW1--the P6 flew sales manager R McWilliams
from Mousehold Heath aerodrome, Norwich, to Bury St Edmunds (a
whole county away) on company matters, thereby making one of the
world's first business flights. Built by volunteers of the Boulton
& Paul Association at Wolverhampton, England, the P6 replica
is likely to have cost more than the 600 pounds for which the
original was unsuccessfully offered, but somewhat less than its
present thousands of successors, daily expediting the world's
business.
