The Circuit of the Oases 1933

The "Second International Aviation Meeting", took place in Egypt from December 19-23, 1933. (The first one had been in 1910, so it was not really a terribly regular event.)

The F.A.I. were aiming to "stimulate an interest in aviation, and to emphasise the advantages presented by the use of aircraft", and the meeting included 3 main competitions:

- "The Circuit of the Oases"; a 2-day touring contest covering about 900 miles;

- a Speed Contest, based on a handicap, over a distance of about 230 miles, and

- the Oases Trophy, which was for a prize for the competitor gaining the highest total of points in the two other contests.

There was a fantastically complicated Handicap Formula, awarding points for (wait for it) fuel consumption, safety (they had to turn the engine off and glide down from 2,000 ft), wing folding (faster = more points), comfort, picketing, take off and landing distances, luggage, engine starting, safety appliances, controls and instruments, refuelling, and (finally) ease of maintenance. It must have taken them hours to assess each aircraft...

Still, not to worry: "The flight south will be easy from a point of navigation, for the blue ribbon of the Nile provides an excellent landmark".

After that, however, "the pilots will have to rely nearly entirely on their compasses, for the Lybian desert provides few landmarks ... a forced landing might easily mean minor injuries resulting in many unpleasant hours, perhaps even days, being spent in the desert before help arrived".

The Circuit was supposed to start on the 20th, but "Egypt's weather, which has a name for constancy, decided for this occasion to be thoroughly feminine. It was capricious to a degree previously unknown, and very nearly, so to speak, wrecked the whole party."

Ahem ...

Anyway ...

At one point there had been 60 entrants, but this had been whittled down to 32 or so by the start of the race.

Out of those 32 starters, just 6 were British:

Race No	Aircraft		Pilot(s)		Crew/Passengers		Fate
3	Avro 626 Prefect	G-ABYM Regd: 22.07.33 to Air Service Training Ltd Scrapped 1939		Flt-Lt R P P Pope	plus 1		Pilot was ill ("possibly with what is colloquially known as Gippy Tummy") for the Oases Circuit; 7th in the Speed Race
17	Percival D.2 Gull Four	G-ACJW Regd: 07.09.33 Sold Australia (as VH-UTC) 11.34		Mr Patrick Randolph	plus 1		5th in the Oases Circuit
23	Miles M.2A Hawk Special	G-ACLI Regd: 18.10.33 Dbf Brooklands 24.10.36		Mr Stephen Bertram Cliff	plus 1		Disqualified from the Oases Circuit (aircraft 19kg overweight); 16th in the Speed Race
24	DH.80A Puss Moth	G-ABKZ Regd: Apr 1931 Impressed 31.5.41 restored Wfu 18.1.50		Sqn-Ldr Frank Ormond Soden DFC	plus 1		9th in the Oases Circuit; 8th in the Speed Race; 6th overall
29	DH.84 Dragon	G-ACKU Regd: 24.11.33 Impressed 7.7.40 Stalled forced landing nr Wantage 10.2.41		Walter Dugald MacPherson	Mr W Lindsay Everard M.P. plus 4 others		1st in the Oases Circuit; 12th in the Speed Race; 1st overall
31	Percival D.2 Gull Four II	G-ACIR Regd: July 1933 Spun in and burnt Heston 20.2.35		Mr Walter Guy Robson			Arrived too late for the Oases Circuit (engine trouble on the way out to Egypt); 13th in the Speed Race on handicap, but did win the Heliopolis Oases Co. prize for fastest Speed (139.9mph)

Another 11 Brits entered, but did not start, for one reason or another:

... and the rest of the field was made up of : 16 French, 3 Egyptian, 2 Italians, a couple of Germans, a Jugoslav, a sole Swede and a lone Belgian.

The French aeroplanes drew special comment from Flight regarding their colouring; they "looked more like a flock of African macaws than anything else. Bright and cheerful, it is true, but not artistic."