Date:	Saturday 30 March 1929
Time:	day
Type:	Boulton Paul P.9
Owner/operator:	Boulton & Paul Ltd
Registration:	G-EAWS
MSN:	6
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 1
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Lympne Airport, Lympne, Kent -   United Kingdom
Phase:	Manoeuvring (airshow, firefighting, ag.ops.)
Nature:	Demo/Airshow/Display
Departure airport:	Lympne Airport, Lympne, Kent (EGMK)
Destination airport:	Lympne Airport, Lympne, Kent (EGMK)
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
The Boulton & Paul P.9 was a British single-engined twin-seat aircraft. The wings and fuselage were constructed of wood with fabric covering. It was built by Boulton & Paul Ltd., of Norwich, Norfolk.

The P.9 was designed as a larger version of the companies P.6 single-engined biplane design, it was 6 ft longer with a 2 ft 6in increase in wingspan. It had the same 90 hp (67 kW) RAF 1 V-8 engine as the P.6 but had an increased fuel capacity. The first order was from A.L Long for use on a sheep station in Australia and the first aircraft was delivered to Australia and it was soon used on newspaper delivery flights. On 17 December 1919 it made the first flight across the Bass Strait between Tasmania and the mainland.

With the success of the first aircraft in Australia, minor changes were made to production aircraft, including a compartment behind the cockpit to carry two specially built suitcase. Although the aircraft was for sale at a modest £700, mainly due to the use of an old but standard engine, it failed to compete with war-surplus sales of converted military aircraft and only eight aircraft were built in total, including a further three to Australia.

The Boulton Paul P.9 was a reliable machine so long as its RAF engine was not run at full throttle for too long. The company's test pilot, C.A.Rea, who used G-EAWS (the sixth production machine) as his personal mount and company demonstration machine, was aware of and avoided this. However not everyone at Boulton Paul was so aware. Another pilot borrowed G-EAWS to compete in the 1929 Easter meeting at Lympne on 30 March. He ran the engine flat out for too long and it threw a cylinder. That necessitated a forced landing, in the course of which he crashed the P.9. G-EAWS was written off and its registration was cancelled on 15 May 1929. But that wasn't quite the end of the aeroplane...

Arthur Ord-Hume claims that the P.9's crash on 30 March 1929 was not the end of its road. By implication he opines that G-EAWS was repaired because, he says, on 12 June 1929, at Cramlington Aerodrome near Newcastle, it ran away on the ground and, presumably after colliding with something, was damaged beyond economic repair. I don't subscribe to this theory because when G-EAWS - or the remains thereof - next emerged, it was at Sundridge Aerodrome (which Ord-Hume claims was one and the same place as Coombe Bank, where Serge de Bolotoff ran his unsuccessful aeroplane manufacturing business) near Sevenoaks. The remains had been acquired Ernest 'Tom' Worsell of Kent. One can understand him having had them transported from Lympne to Sevenoaks. But from Newcastle to Sevenoaks? That seems unlikely...

Worsell used the remains of G-EAWS to create the Worsell Monoplane at Sundridge in 1930. When I say 'create', I've chosen my verb carefully. To say construct would be to give too positive an impression of what emerged. From the biplane built by Boulton Paul, Worsell created a parasol wing monoplane. Unsurprisingly he chose not to register his creation but allowed it to carry the identity of its alter ego, G-EAWS. Ord-Hume relates that the parasol wing was formed from the lower wings of the P.9 but without a centre section. It was supported by lift struts of thin grade steel tubes. Worsell removed the fuselage top deck and fin, but left the rudder in place. The undercarriage was cut down, leaving an appearance of wheels attached to the lower fuselage. But to add insult to injury, Worsell removed the damaged 90 hp RAF engine and substituted a 10 hp Singer motorcar engine. This he bolted to the top longerons of the P.9 fuselage. Worsell carved a propeller, which he attached to the crankshaft taking the drive straight off its front end of the engine and extending though a hole cut in the radiator. Having done all of that, he expected his creation to fly! Against all the odds, it did - but not for long. Ord-Hume relates the account of Gordon Anckorn, who witnessed the 'flight', as follows:

'I saw this aircraft get off the ground for a few yards on the airfield, bounce, and then hitting a shallow ditch, turn over. It was very broken'.

Worsell, who had been at the controls, was none the worse for his escapade. Fortunately he had the sense not to rebuild the machine or to try to fly it again. Presumably the remains of the remains were set aside and never heard of again...and that was the final end of the Boulton Paul P.9!

(G-EAWS, c/no.P.9/6, first civil registered 21/4/21 to Boulton & Paul Ltd., Norwich, Norfolk. C of R 648. Registration officially cancelled 15/5/29 due to "destruction or permanent withdrawl from use of aircraft")

1. Kent & Sussex Courier - Friday 12 September 1930:
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulton_Paul_P.9
3. http://www.airhistory.org.uk/gy/reg_G-E1.html
4. https://cwsprduksumbraco.blob.core.windows.net/g-info/HistoricalLedger/G-EAWS.pdf
5. http://www.britishaviation-ptp.com/b/boulton_paul_p6_p9.html
6. http://ata.afleetingpeace.org/index.php/gallery/gallery/k/kings-cup-1922-g-eaws-boulton-paul-p9-tennant-0383-0164-4212
7. http://www.afleetingpeace.org/index.php/15-aeroplanes/81-register-gb-g-ea
8. http://www.hampshireairfields.co.uk/airfields/ben.html

Francis Stewart Briggs (left inset) and Clement John de Garis (right inset) in front of their Boulton and Paul P9 aircraft, July 1920:

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
17-Mar-2020 21:02	Dr. John Smith	Added
17-Mar-2020 21:23	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Nature, Destination airport, Source, Narrative]