Lilian Bland facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Lilian Bland
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Bland with the Mayfly
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| Born | 28 September 1878 |
| Died | 11 May 1971 (aged 92) |
| Burial place | St Sennen's churchyard, Sennen, near Land's End, Cornwall |
| Nationality | United Kingdom |
| Spouse(s) | Charles Loftus Bland |
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Lilian Bland was an amazing Anglo-Irish journalist and a pioneer in aviation. In 1910–1911, she became one of the first women in the British Isles, and possibly the world, to design, build, and fly her own aircraft. She called her plane the Mayfly. Lilian Bland was born on September 28, 1878, and passed away on May 11, 1971.
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Early Life and Interests
Lilian Bland was born in Maidstone, Kent, on September 28, 1878. She grew up in a well-known family. Around 1900, she started working as a sports journalist and photographer for newspapers in London. Lilian lived a very unusual life for her time. She smoked, wore trousers, and enjoyed hunting, shooting, and fishing.
After her mother passed away, Lilian and her father moved to Tobercorran House in Carnmoney, northern Ireland. This was a family home near Belfast. From here, Lilian continued her photography. She spent many days on remote Scottish islands taking pictures of seabirds. This work made her even more interested in the idea of flying.
Building the Mayfly
Lilian's uncle Robert sent her a postcard of the Blériot monoplane from Paris. This postcard gave her the idea to try flying herself. In 1909, she studied the measurements of the monoplane at an aviation meeting in Blackpool. She then used her own ideas to design her plane, which she named the Mayfly.
The Mayfly had wings similar to Blériot's design. At that time, no one in Ireland had made a successful powered flight yet. Lilian decided to build the aircraft herself. Her late uncle, General William James Smythe, had a house with a workshop. Lilian read about the Wright brothers and their achievements. She then successfully built a small model biplane that could fly. It had a wing span of six feet.
From Glider to Powered Flight
Lilian then moved on to build a full-sized glider. She got help from others to build it using spruce wood, bamboo, and canvas. The glider was finished in early 1910. For months, she did many glider flights to make the plane better. The finished glider had a wingspan of over 20 feet and weighed 200 pounds.
People doubted if her plane could fly. So, Lilian jokingly named it the Mayfly. She tested the Mayfly by gliding it from Carnmoney Hill. She made it stronger and tested it with heavier loads. Four Irish police officers helped with the load test. Since the plane could lift four men, Lilian believed it could carry an engine.
She ordered a light 20 horsepower two-stroke engine from A. V. Roe & Co. for £100. After some delays, she brought the engine to Carnmoney in July. The engine was powerful, reaching 20 horsepower at 1000 rotations per minute. Lilian was eager to test the plane before its fuel tank was ready. She used an empty whiskey bottle as a temporary fuel tank. She even used her deaf aunt's ear trumpet as an engine hose!
This setup was not perfect. The engine's vibrations made the plane's parts loose. Lilian had to wait a bit longer for her first flight.
First Flight and Legacy
Lilian Bland started preparing the Mayfly in 1909. Her first successful flight happened at Randalstown in late August 1910. It was a short hop off the ground. She sat on an open-air canvas seat and used bicycle handlebars to control the plane. She ran forward about 30 feet and stayed in the air for a quarter of a mile.
This made Lilian Bland the first woman to fly an aircraft in Ireland. The Mayfly also became the first powered biplane in Ireland. In 2017, the poet Sinead Morrisey wrote about one of Bland's flights in her poem, "The Mayfly."
Lilian continued to experiment with more flights. Most of these were about thirty feet (ten metres) long. Sometimes she had to check the ground to see if the Mayfly had actually lifted off. Her longest flight after the first one was about a quarter of a mile (400 metres). She planned to make an improved version. She even offered to sell biplanes for £250 (without an engine) and gliders for £80 to get money for her projects.
The Mayfly could glide steadily for over 90 yards and rise 30 feet, even in windy conditions. However, the aircraft could not handle a larger engine. Lilian eventually gave the Mayfly air-frame to a boys' gliding club and sold the engine.
Later Life
By April 1911, Lilian was running a car dealership in Belfast, Ireland. But later that year, she stopped the business to marry her cousin, Charles Loftus Bland. Charles was a lumberjack from British Columbia who had come back to Ireland to propose to Lilian. They married on October 3, 1911, and soon moved to Canada. There, they built their own farm on new land.
Lilian and Charles had one child, Patricia Lilian Bland, born on April 13, 1913. Sadly, Patricia died of tetanus in September 1929, when she was 16 years old. Lilian and Charles separated soon after this tragedy. Lilian moved back to England, and Charles later married his second wife.
Lilian returned to the United Kingdom in 1935 and settled in Kent. She became a gardener and invested her money in the stock market. She also wrote a book about her life, but it has not been published yet. By the 1950s, Lilian Bland had retired to Cornwall. In 1971, when she was 92, she told the Belfast Telegraph that gambling was the only excitement she had left. She passed away soon after, on May 11, 1971.
Legacy
Lilian Bland is remembered today in several ways. An Ulster History Circle blue plaque was placed at her family home in Carnmoney, County Antrim. The Mayfly was given to the Dublin Club. Glengormley Park in Newtownabbey was renamed Lilian Bland Community Park in August 2011. At the same time, a metal sculpture of the Mayfly was revealed there. Four of her paintings were sold at an auction in Penzance in July 2021.
In 2021, an exhibition about Irish innovators at the Ulster Transport Museum in Belfast featured Lilian Bland's important work in Irish aviation. Zara Rutherford, who became the youngest woman to fly solo around the world in 2022, said that Lilian Bland was one of her inspirations.
