THE PIONEERS OF CIVIL AVIATION IN ORKNEY

Captain Ernest Edmund `Ted` Fresson is known today as the forerunner for Civil aviation in Orkney, Ted  had become interested in aeroplanes at an early age and had learned to fly in Canada and America prior to the First World War and during the latter flew anti-submarine missions from England.

After WW1 Ted Fresson  returned to China where he had once worked in the tea trade, here he now became a flying instructor and became also involved with aircraft construction.

Above:  Fresson`s DH-60 Moth in Kirkwall.  Photo: Orkney Library Photo Archive.

In 1928 he returned to England and set up a business for pleasure flights around the British Isles, but had bigger ideas and in April 1931 made a succesful flight from Scotland to Kirkwall in his DH-60G Moth G-AAWO along with a passenger Miss Helen Pauer, the purpose of the flight being to find a suitable landing place for an airfield for running pleasure flights in the Summer months, The aircraft landed in a field near Balfour Hospital, close to the Scapa Pier road. 

Above:  Fresson & Miss Pauer at the shed of J.G.Shearer on Castle Street, Kirkwall in 1932.  Photo: Orkney Library Photo Archive. 

On 22nd August 1931  Fresson made another flight to Orkney in an AVRO 504  G-EBGZ and landed in a field off the Deerness Rd, Kirkwall and interest was shown by James Mackintosh the owner of the `Orcadian` who wrote a number of articles in the newspaper describing these pioneering flights.

In February 1932  Fresson again in the  DH60 flew back to Orkney and landed the aircraft in a field near the Peedie Sea, it was then towed with folded wings to the Coal Mercheant J.G.Shearer`s shed where it was stored prior to a return flight and talks with local backers for a scheduled service to operate from Inverness  to Kirkwall.   

 

Above:  FDC  Commemorates the First Air Mail from Orkney in 1934.

 

Above:  A de Havilland Dragon makes a landing on South Ronaldsay in 1938.  Photo: Tom Scott.

 

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