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In 1914 Newquay lad, Charlie Burns, was an apprentice car mechanic who after getting into trouble with his boss for taking a day off to go to the army recruiting offices with a friend, ended up as an air crewman. At one point he found himself alongside the famous aircraft pioneer, Tommy Sopwith, for test flights.

Charlie was originally told he was too short by half an inch to join the army. But his garage boss spoke to an RNAS lieutenant who had brought his car in to be serviced and Charlie managed to get in to the RFC instead. Charlie was glad because he was only earning 10 shillings as a garage apprentice and this went up to 2 Bob a day (a shilling as an air mechanic, another shilling as an engineer).

The aircraft arrived in parts in boxes and Charlie would help assemble them on bases in the middle of a hangar.

In an archive interview recorded for the Â鶹Éç in 2002, Charlie describes how he’d been in a plane with Tommy Sopwith to test the aircraft at Great Yarmouth. Apparently the air mechanics used to scramble to be first to get in to the passenger seat to act as ballast behind Sopwith.
In later years Tommy Sopwith’s love of power-boating brought him to Cornwall to compete in the ‘Cornish 100’; an archive photograph taken off Trelissick shows the race.
Charlie says he flew in short seaplanes and land machines in what was the infancy of aircraft. He even flew with the famous aviator Sir John Alcock (aka Jack Alcock) in 1916.

Location: Newquay, Cornwall
Image: War aircraft that Tommy worked on, courtesy of Imperial War Museums

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