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Henry Biard (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Henry Biard was an early British pilot - aviator's certificate number 218 - and flew in both world wars, but became a national hero for his victory in the 1924 Schneider Trophy seaplane race. He was a close colleague and friend of R. J. Mitchell at Supermarine, where he served as chief test pilot between 1919 and 1928. A colourful character of the old school -- fond of a tall tale (not least his own autobiography, which imposes some interesting challenges of sourcing), not shy of speaking his mind, and every ounce the dashing airborne daredevil. Perhaps ironically given present company, Biard never seemed to take much to military life: he fairly literally crashed out of the Royal Flying Corps just before the First World War, had a fairly uneventful time with the Royal Naval Air Service, and seems to have spent the Second World War doing communications flights. Having recently passed GA, this article may be bound for FAC at some point, and I'd be grateful for some MilHist expertise on the military and technical side of it: almost none of this subject-matter falls into my usual areas of expertise. UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:31, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
HF
I'll try to review this over the weekend. Hog Farm Talk 17:39, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Do we know anything about his reasons for initially joining the military in 1913? Or anything about why he resigned the next year?
- I'd imagine he says (or makes up) something in his autobiography (but see final point below) -- I've failed to find a copy, sadly, and it's out of print. If you take his story about being crashed by Trenchard as true (I must admit that I don't think I do), that probably played a role in it! UndercoverClassicist T·C 22:20, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- " On 2 December 1917, Biard was commissioned into the Royal Naval Air Service" - is it known if this was a volunteer decision or conscription?
- I don't: do the dates suggest the latter? My thought would be that it's pretty late to volunteer, but then equally I can see how his work training civilian pilots (presumably, who often then enlisted) could have been seen (at least by him) as war work of a sort. UndercoverClassicist T·C 22:20, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- "He is believed to have undergone training at the RNAS's flight school in Vendôme, France." - is this a generally held belief, or that of a specific author?
- Bertram gives it as "it is believed" -- I don't suppose you know anything about RNAS flight training? I failed to find much background information; I assume this was simply what usually happened? UndercoverClassicist T·C 22:20, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- "Passaleva suffered from vibration caused by his propellor, which was beginning to delaminate after being immersed in water the previous day: however, the competition rules forbade him from changing it" - I tend to think this would read smoother if split into two sentences at the colon
- "but suggested that airflow over the wings may have interfered with the aircraft's elevators and tailplanes, causing aileron flutter." - link aileron
- We have "The 1926 competition was for aircraft under 176 pounds (80 kg) that could fly with the greatest load-to-fuel ratio carried over courses that totalled 2,000 miles (3,200 km)" in a footnote, but then later, describing the aircraft entered into this challenge, we have the statement "The aircraft, 130 pounds (59 kg) heavier and 7 miles per hour (11 km/h) slower than the Sparrow I,". Did the Sparrow I really weigh 36 pounds or less? This seems unrealistic
- Pegram messed that one up a bit: it's engine weight, not total weight, and it was 170lb. Fixed from another source. Good spot -- I'd missed that, but it was a bit silly! UndercoverClassicist T·C 22:20, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Is it known when he married?
- I'd assume it's in Wings, but I only managed to find indirect references to his being married: I couldn't even find the wife's name. UndercoverClassicist T·C 22:20, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- For FA status, you're going to need to be able to defend what makes The Channel Islands and the Great War pass the higher bar of high-quality reliable source
- It's a tricky one: Bertram's a local historian and seems to be a good one, but he isn't a "proper" university-based academic. My sense is that the Ur-source for these pages is Biard's autobiography, Wings, which is out of print (and has its own problems!): in an ideal world, I'd like to get hold of a copy and cross-reference everything, and would probably be able to get rid of this website that way. I think everything cited there is relatively pedestrian and the sort of thing that we assume could be easily enough found out and verified by a local historian (e.g. the dates at which he was at school: we'd expect that to be in a school archive, even if we can't ourselves easily access it). Not an ideal situation, granted: there's an essay somewhere about how we sometimes have to fall back on the best available sources, and that feels like the situation we're in here. UndercoverClassicist T·C 22:20, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My biggest concern here is not related to article quality so much but more placement of this in A-Class review. See note #3 at WP:MILHIST - Military service does not in and of itself place an individual within the scope of the project—particularly in the case of service in modern militaries. To qualify them, an individual's military service must have been somehow noteworthy or have contributed—directly or indirectly—to their notability. and Biard's military service seems rather incidental to his primary notability as an aircraft tester for private industry. Hog Farm Talk 21:35, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Honestly, I wouldn't have any disagreement with that -- I hadn't clocked it when going through the instructions. Appreciate your time so far: if it's felt that the article is ineligible for review here, I'm happy to withdraw it. On the off-chance, though: I wondered if you could give me a sanity check for the Second World War paragraph in the later life section? In particular, I've found that he was briefly moved to the General Duties branch of the RAF (shortly after the Battle of Britain), but am not sure if we can say anything useful from that about what he was doing. UndercoverClassicist T·C 22:20, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with 20th century UK military systems either - I'm mainly familiar with the mid-19th century United States. Hog Farm Talk 01:26, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Zawed might be able to shed light on some of the RAF stuff. Hog Farm Talk 23:38, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Chipping in here, it is my understanding (note that I don't profess to be a specialist on the RAF so may be wrong here) that General Duties were 'frontline' personnel - pilots, other flying personnel, ground crew, staff and admin people whereas the Administrative and Special Duties Branch were older personnel fulfilling an admin, e.g. payroll, or a research role. That doesn't quite fit in with him being a communications pilot for the first 12 or so months of the war though. I wonder if the source is confused, and the period in the GD branch was when he was in that pilot role. Zawed (talk) 09:05, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Hi Zawed -- thanks for chipping in with this. His service (see Discussion on the project page) has this kind of sequence:
- Starting off in "admin duties"
- Then moving to flying duties in the "Ferry Pilots Pool" (I assume that means flying people/things around the place?),
- Then a few posts with the refuelling section (presumably what it says on the tin?),
- Then some work as a "permanent duty pilot" at Northolt (could that be combat service?)
- A short post at Bridgenorth for "No. 21 Fly: Control Course" (training or being trained?)
- PDP at Penrhos (again seems to have been a training base: instructing?)
- Two posts at different AGS (Air Gunners' School or Aircrew Grading School) -- presumably instructing in some capacity.
- A couple more admin duties from late 1943, which would chime with an imminent departure for health reasons.
- Any thoughts on any of that? There's no indication from his later life that he was physically disabled (though equally there's no record of him flying professionally after the war): do you have any idea of what it would have taken for an officer to leave the RAF in 1944 for health reasons? UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:49, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hawkeye7
- Typo: "propellor"
- Convert horsepower to Watts?
- "the story was reported in the The Scotsman." Do wee need two "the"s?
- I fixed two CS1 warnings
- Any details about his marriages? (I found his divorce)
Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:12, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Magnificent on the marriages -- one of his service records has the date of his marriage, but no name. We can probably do something like "Biard married on 1 July 1914. In 1936, he divorced his wife, Simone...", which doesn't definitively say that they were the same person. I'd imagine the date of marriage is on the document: I'm not in a position to get to Kew in the near future, unfortunately, but I'll try to get a look at it if I'm ever there. UndercoverClassicist T·C 07:25, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- This is always frustrating. If he were an Australian, his service record would be online, as would the newspapers and the registry of births, deaths and marriages. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:03, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- I've got the service record, usefully, but the "wife's name" field is blank -- despite there being a date entered for his marriage! One thought that hadn't yet occurred to me: I might see if there are any local newspapers around that date: it wouldn't be unusual to post an announcement in there. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:12, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Image review - pass
- Why do you believe "File:Supermarine Sea Lion II L'Aerophile October,1922.jpg" to be PD?
- The source page gives the "rights" as PD. Coming at it from another direction, it's published in a magazine but not claimed by the author, so the copyright for that publication presumably belonged to the publication itself (so PMA starts at the date of publication): for a 1922 publication, it's therefore out of copyright in both France and the US.
- "Schneider Trophy 1922 Course Map.svg": it would be helpful to have full details of the source, perhaps in the same format as used in Works cited. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:03, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]