Aviation History

Even among civilian craft, the legends grew at Hamble - the Avenger, the Bison, and the jumbo of its day, the Ava. Test pilot Bert Hinkler flew an Avro Avian solo to Australia in 1928 - in fifteen and half days. The journey was not exactly non-stop, it should be said.

The reputation for aviation grew in Hamble, and in 1931 Air Services Training Ltd began teaching pilots for civilian work and for the military. Many students came from abroad, including Germany and Japan, men who before long found themselves fighting their old mess-mates.

World War II...

When yet another war was in the offing, Hamble was well placed to win government contracts. But Hamble did more than train pilots and build planes. It employed 3,000 people building spare parts for an encyclopaedia of the best known of early war planes - Spitfires and Wellingtons, Beauforts and Sunderland Flying Boats, Mosquitoes and Hornets.

Post War production...

Hamble helped the world into the jet age in the 1950s making components for Vampires and Comets, Canberras and Hawker Hunters, and Sea Vixens. The Gnat was designed and built at Hamble, and stayed in production till 1962.

It is hard to credit how big the aero industry had become in Hamble, but in 1959 no less than ten aircraft factories were amalgamated into one group, which in 1977 became British Aerospace.

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