Date:	Friday 23 August 1935
Time:	day
Type:	Avro 504N
Owner/operator:	Zenith Airways Ltd
Registration:	G-ADGB
MSN:	J8758
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 3
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Camber Sands Beach, Camber Sands, near Rye, East Sussex -   United Kingdom
Phase:	Landing
Nature:	Passenger - Non-Scheduled/charter/Air Taxi
Departure airport:	Camber Sands Beach, Camber Sands, near Rye, East Sussex
Destination airport:	Camber Sands Beach, Camber Sands, near Rye, East Sussex
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
Ex-RAF Avro 504N J8758: Known RAF service was with 24 Squadron at RAF Hendon from December 1927 to 1928, and RAF Duxford Station Flight in 1928-29. Damaged in accident at RAF Duxford, Cambridgeshire 25/10/29. repaired and returned to service. Back with 24 Squadron at RAF Hendon in September 1930. To Oxford UAS (University Air Squadron) as "A" by/in January 1931. Withdrawn from use and stored at RAF Kenley pending disposal 7/9/33. Struck off charge and sold shortly after this date. Stored at Croydon, and then upgraded to an Avro 504N Mk.II with 130hp Clerget engine.

First civilian registered (C of R 5948; C of A 4911) on 6/6/35 as G-AGDB to Zenith Airways Ltd., Camber Sands Beach, Camber Sands, near Rye, East Sussex

In 1935/36 it appears that Zenith Airways were operating a three seat Avro 504K Mk. II (G-ADGB - which started its life as an Avro 504N) from Camber Sands and the operation was sufficiently substantial for the "Manager, Camber Aerodrome" to be advertising for a ground engineer in Flight magazine of 2 May 1935.

A post on the AiX forum suggests that Zenith Airways were a joyriding/flying circus operation and, if so, flying off the sands at Camber seems more likely that an airfield in the accepted sense. However it seems that there must have been a tangible "base" at Camber - otherwise to where would the postman have delivered applications for the post of general engineer there in 1935? The AiX forum thread makes the reference to the only three other Avro 504K Mk. II's (G-ADGC, G-ADGM and G-ADGN) being part of the Zenith Airways fleet. None of these were ever registered to Zenith, their sole registered owners being, respectively, J.E.Coxon, Brooklands Aviation and Aviation Commerce and none of them giving (as Zenith did for G-ADGB) Camber Aerodrome as their address. However in British Civil Aircraft 1919-1972 A.J.Jackson says "Four other Avro 504Ns reverted to their ancestral 130 hp Clerget rotaries as G-ADGB, 'GC, 'GM and 'GN, two of which flew with Zenith Airways on Camber Sands, Sussex, during the summer of 1935. These were the sole examples of the Avro 504K Mk. II".

In 1951 these activities were mentioned, retrospectively, in Flight magazine (see link #5). It seems to indicate conclusively that Camber Aerodrome was, in fact, the sands at Camber. Presumably the Bessoneau hangar, mentioned in the article, went wherever the joyflying was being operated in any particular year and it was at Camber in 1935. Thus it appears to be a case of "one hangar makes an aerodrome"!

It would appear that the author of the article, Stuart Campbell Brander, must have answered the 1935 advertisement, in Flight magazine, for a ground engineer - as it specifically sought someone with experience of Clerget and Gipsy engines - and subsequently got the job. But I wonder who he worked for? This isn't mentioned in the article and the handbill illustration, which accompanies it, mentions Alpha Flying Services. But maybe this was just an appropriate and available illustration and his employer actually was Zenith Airways.

G-ADGB came to it end when it was wrecked in a forced landing at Camber Sands Beach, Camber Sands, near Rye, East Sussex on or about 23/8/35 (as reported in the local newspaper, Hastings and St Leonards Observer - Saturday 24 August 1935).

Registration G-ADGB cancelled 2/6/36 due to "destruction or permanent withdrawl from use of aircraft"

1. Hastings and St Leonards Observer - Saturday 24 August 1935
2. Royal Air Force Aircraft J1-J9999 (and WWI Survivors) p.91 Dennis Thompson & Ray Sturtivant (Air Britain, 1987)
3. http://www.airhistory.org.uk/gy/reg_G-A6.html
4. https://cwsprduksumbraco.blob.core.windows.net/g-info/HistoricalLedger/G-ADGB.pdf
5. http://afleetingpeace.org/index.php/business-pleasure/joyriding-companies
6. Flight Magazine 1951: http://www.flightglobal.com/FlightPD...20-%200553.PDF and http://www.flightglobal.com/FlightPD...20-%200554.PDF
7. https://www.pprune.org/aviation-history-nostalgia/276126-abandoned-little-known-airfields-5.html#post4926216
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camber_Sands
9. http://afleetingpeace.org/index.php/15-aeroplanes/78-register-gb-g-ad

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
28-Mar-2020 21:32	Dr. John Smith	Added
28-Mar-2020 21:46	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Source]