St Valentine's Day Aviation Trivia

[Guest pelorus32]

Happy Valentine's day everyone!

 

I woke up this morning feeling even more trivial than usual :;)3: and here is the trivia question that results:

 

What is the connection between aviation and the name Valentine?

 

It isn't a trivial connection BTW.

 

Go your hardest.

 

Regards

 

Mike

 

 

[slartibartfast]

You're probably referring to Rundle Valentine, who was disallowed from flying in the 1919 England-Australia Air Race with Charles Kingsford-Smith because of a lack of navigation experience.

 

But there's also James Valentine Fairbairn, who was born in England in 1897, grew up in Australia, went to Geelong Grammar, returned to England to enlist, joined the Royal Flying Corps, was shot down while on escort over France, POW for 14 months, then released on exchange.

 

Returned to Australia in 1919, joined politics, was elected to House of Reps in 1932 and regularly flew himself from his property in Victoria to Canberra. He became known as an expert in aviation, and in 1939 joined Menzies' first cabinet as minister for civil aviation. At the outbreak of WWII he went to Canada to set up the Empire Air Scheme (where airmen from all over the empire were trained in Canada). In 1940 he flew himself around Australia to review all RAAF bases. In August 1940 he and 2 other cabinet members were killed when the RAAF bomber in which they were passengers crashed on approach to Canberra airport.

 

Canberra airport (at least the adjacent RAAF base) is now named after him.

 

Any other Valentine links?

 

Oh yeah - happy Valentine's day. I love youse all.:;)7:

 

Ross

 

 

[Guest pelorus32]

Sheez Ross,

 

what a great couple of options....I'll pay those BUT neither of them were the one I'm after.

 

Keep them coming guys! Just as a small clue, his mate with whom his name is usually associated was called Jimmy!!

 

Regards

 

Mike

 

 

[Guest pelorus32]

Right, first things first. Ian can you please come up with a prize for Slarti? He is on my all stars trivial pursuit team. As for the rest of the forum members. Not only are they not up with their trivia...they also display a complete lack of interest!!

 

My Valentine :big_grin: is Valentine Baker who, together with his great friend Jimmy Martin, formed the Martin-Baker Aircraft Company in 1934.

 

Of course the thing that they are most famous for is the Martin-Baker ejection seat which is still the dominant force in the ejection seat market. 7500 plus lives saved and still counting. And as an aside (trivially yours...) the company is still managed by the Martin family with 2 Martin brothers acting as joint managing directors.

 

Yours eternally in trivia...

 

Mike