Schlesinger Race

The Schlesinger Race, also known as the "Rand Race", the "Portsmouth - Johannesburg Race" or more commonly the 'African Air Race', took place in September 1936. The Royal Aero Club announced the race on behalf of Isidore William Schlesinger who wanted to promote the Johannesburg Empire Exhibition and so offered a total of £10,000 in prize money to be divided into two sections, a speed race and a handicap race. The two sections were to be flown concurrently, but no competitor could win both first prizes.

The race was wholly inspired by the very successful 1934 MacRobertson Air Race to celebrate the centenary of the Australian state of Victoria. However, whilst that race was open to all-comers, Schlesinger made the fundamental error of restricting the entry of the Schlesinger Race to British Empire crews and machines only. This led directly to a much smaller entry and only one machine successfully completed the course after many aircraft either failed, crashed or given up. Magazines of the time, such as The Aeroplane and Flight, were suitably scathing. MacRobertson Air Race winner C.W.A. Scott aided by Giles Guthrie won the race in a Percival Vega Gull, but it was a hollow victory, as most of the waiting spectators at Cape Town had given up and gone home by the time he arrived.

There were 14 entrants, but only nine aircraft took part in the race. Tom Campbell Black was entered into the race in G-EAKL Percival Mew Gull but ten days before the start of the race he was fatally injured at Speke Airport while preparing for the race when Flying Officer Peter Stanley Salter who was the Assistant Adjutant and Chief Flying Instructor of No. 611 Squadron taxiied his Hawker Hart No. K3044 into Black's aircraft which was also taxiing on the runway. Black's fuselage was almost cut in two when the Hart's propeller cut into it, mortally injuring Black, who died in the ambulance in the way to hospital. Two aircraft, Miles Peregrine and M. Chand's Percival Vega Gull were not ready, while John E. Carberry's Vega Gull was damaged when Beryl Markham landed in a peat bog at Balleine Cove, Cape Breton Island, after flying it across the Atlantic Ocean, 4–5 September.

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