Mr Larry L Carter

  photo: 1923

One of the original AT&T pilots after WWI.

In May 1922, "Mr. Larry Carter had an unusual experience while flying the 10-seater Bristol from Paris to London on Wednesday. Just as he rose from the ground at Le Bourget one of the joints of his under-carriage became loose, and a portion of the under-carriage was left hanging down. This was quite unnoticed by Mr. Carter, but the officials at Le Bourget saw what had happened and wirelessed to Croydon a full description of the occurrence. The wireless operators at Croydon, as soon as Mr. Carter came within speaking range, "rang him up" and told him what had happened. Mr. Carter, being thus warned of what difficulties were in store for him when the time came for him to land, was able so to manoeuvre his machine that, after a landing which excited the admiration of all the pilots on the aerodrome, only the tip of one wing was damaged. Had he not been made aware of the breakage in the under-carriage it is highly probable that a serious crash would have resulted."

Gloster's test pilot from 1923; he flew the prototype of the Grebe (derived from the SE5) in that year's King's Cup race.

Fractured his skull and broke a leg when the Gloster II racer crashed in 1925, and in 1928 (not having flown since) died from meningitus, aged 28.