Wolley Dod, Charles Francis

Charles Francis Wolley Dod

One of the original 16 pilots of Imperial Airways in 1924

b. 25 Aug 1892 in Bengal, India

Sir Alan Cobham had some harsh words to say, when he sold his well-travelled 'Youth of Britain' aircraft to Imperial Airways; "I arrived at Salisbury [Rhodesia] on January 7 1930, and handed the aircraft over to Wolley Dod. I found him to be an unbelievably tiresome man. He spoke to me as though I were a pupil pilot of no experience at all; he went over the aircraft in detail, and managed to find something wrong with every aspect of it - the fuel system, the propeller, the rigging, the lot. I controlled myself with difficulty. I was fortunate indeed to have escaped being teamed up with such a fuss-pot".

Wolley Dod promptly crashed the aircraft at Broken Hill, much to Sir Alan's fury; "I had carried some 40,000 passengers in this perfectly good aircraft, making perhaps 5,000 landings. Then Big Brother took it over, and had to go and break it straight away."

IMPERIAL AIRWAYS LINER (ACCIDENT).

HC Deb 16 March 1937 vol 321 c1858 1858

Mr. Perkins (by Private Notice) asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether he can make any statement with regard to the disappearance of the Imperial Airways liner "Jupiter" last night?

- The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Sir Philip Sassoon): I regret to have to inform the House that Imperial Airways liner G-ACVZ, which left Croydon for Cologne at half-past nine last night, failed to arrive, and her wreckage was found later burnt out about 25 miles this side of Cologne. The three occupants of the machine, Captain C. B. Holmes, pilot; Mr. C. E. Langman, wireless operator; and Mr. C. F. Wolley Dod, Imperial Airways European Manager, were dead. No mails were on board. The cause of the accident is not yet determined. As far as we can ascertain there were rain and sleet moving eastward at the time over Belgium, but not general ice conditions, and the pilot was heard at 10.58 p.m. to inform Brussels that he was flying in good visibility.

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