Civil Use
The first prototype III was purchased back by Fairey in 1919, fitted with new, single bay wings and a Napier Lion engine and entered into the 1919 Schneider Trophy race, on 10 September. The race was abandoned due to fog, however.
Four IIICs were civilianized, some with an extra cockpit between the two standard ones and sometimes with an enlarged rear cockpit. One carried five passengers, one in the extra cockpit and four in the rear. One three seat civilianized IIIC (G-EBDI) was part of a Daily News sponsored multi-aircraft round the world flight in 1922, with Norman MacMillan, W.T. Blake and cine-photographer G.H. Malins. The aircraft, with MacMillan and Malins aboard was finally lost between Lakhidia Char and Chittagong, but the crew were rescued.
A small number of civil operated IIIDs and IIIFs were used for survey duties in the 1920s and 30s, while in October 1934 a single IIIF was entered into the MacRobertson Air Race, reaching the finishing line in Melbourne but too late to be classed as completing the race.
Read more about this topic: Fairey III
Famous quotes containing the word civil:
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—Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835–1930)
“A mechanism of some kind stands between us and almost every act of our lives.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 3, ch. 2 (1962)