Eric Gordon England

Eric Cecil Gordon England
Eric Cecil Gordon England in his Hanriot monoplane Henrietta
Born	(1891-04-05)5 April 1891 Concordia, Argentine Republic
Died	February 1976 (1976-03) (aged 84) Bracknell, England
Occupation	Aviator Aeronautical engineer Racing driver Company director
Known for	Birth of Gliding Lightweight car bodies

Eric Cecil Gordon England (5 April 1891 – February 1976) AFRAeS, FIMT, was a British aviator, racing driver and engineer. E.C. Gordon England was one of the early pioneers of gliding, and his glider flight in 1909 is considered to be the birth of the sport of soaring.

Gordon England was born in Argentina in 1891, the son of British parents George and Amy England. He emigrated to England at age ten, and he was first educated at New College, Eastbourne; then from 1904 to 1906 at Framlingham College in Suffolk. He then started an engineering apprenticeship with the Great Northern Railway works at Doncaster becoming a fellow-apprentice of W O Bentley.

In 1908, he left the railways for his first job in aviation, working as an assistant for Noel Pemberton Billing who was trying to establish a flying ground at South Fambridge in Essex. While working for Pemberton Billing he met José Weiss, who designed and built tailless gliders, and England became an assistant to Weiss. On 27 June 1909, England flew a Weiss glider (named Olive after one of Weiss's five daughters), at Amberley Mount, Sussex, on a height-gaining flight that reached 100 feet. It is the first recorded soaring flight, and is considered to be the birth of the sport of Gliding.

In 1911, Gordon England taught himself to fly at the Bristol flying school at Brooklands, and he gained Pilot Certificate No. 68 in three hours. Later in 1911, he joined the Bristol Aeroplane Company as a staff pilot, but was soon recognised as a designer. One of his first design tasks was to convert a Bristol T-type biplane into a tractor design, which was then named the Bristol Challenger-England. This conversion was followed by three biplanes (the G.E.1, G.E.2 and G.E.3), all designed by England. In August 1912, the G.E.2 was flown by England in the Military Aeroplane Trials at Larkhill. England left the Bristol company, and in 1912 in association with James Radley produced the Radley-England waterplane; it was the first three-engined aircraft built in the United Kingdom. England also built and tested the Lee-Richards Annular Wing Monoplane. Between 1913 and 1916, he was a test pilot and consultant engineer to a number of aircraft constructors, mainly on the English south coast, including J. Samuel White and Company and White and Thompson.