In Biggles & Co, Stella Carstairs flew a "Falcon" to visit Biggles at Hardwick. Her father had just bought it for her after making a tidy profit because of a successful delivery of gold Biggles had made a few days earlier. Because she stayed to talk to Biggles, darkness had fallen and she was obliged to leave the aircraft at Hardwick and go home by bus. The next day, Biggles departed in his Cormorant to collect Algy from his kidnappers. Ginger wanted to follow him (against orders) but had nothing available, so he decided to "borrow" Stella's Falcon. Because of the Falcon's speed, he had no difficulty catching up and managed to locate the wreckage of the Cormorant. He thought the body in the wreck was Biggles, and keen on revenge, took off to follow the German transport he saw departing the crash site earlier. Again, he was able to follow it all the way to von Stalhein's castle. Biggles, Algy and Ginger subsequently flew back to England in the Falcon. "Biggles automatically took the joystick."
There are enough hints in the text to enable us to pin down the exact type of aircraft here. Biggles noted that it was a "neat black and white three-seater Falcon." Stella told Biggles her Falcon was the aircraft which one "Mr Briggs" had used to break an Australian record the month before. Johns was making an allusion to an actual event. The prototype Miles Falcon, G-ACTM, nicknamed "Heart's Content II", was flown by Harold Leslie Brook in the MacRobertson England to Australia air race in October 1934. He took almost a month to complete the journey and so did not qualify within the 16 day limit for a place among the finishers. However, on the return trip, he broke the solo Australia-England record, doing the flight in 7 days, 19 hours, 50 minutes, arriving on 31 Mar 1935. The original G-ACTM appears to have been painted black and white and while some later variants had four seats, the original prototype was a three-seater.[1]
The name "Briggs" would have been close enough to "Brook" to remind Johns' readers of the actual event and if Stella was right in that the aircraft returned from Australia the previous month, the events in the story would have been set in April 1935.
The Miles Falcon might also be a candidate for the fictional Wessex "Student" except for the fact that the single cabin door only gives access to the starboard wing.
Specifications[]
Data is for the M3A, the first production variant
- Seats: Three
- Length: 25 ft 0 in (7.62 m)
- Wingspan: 35 ft 0 in (10.67 m)
- Empty weight: 1,300 lb (590 kg)
- Gross weight: 2,200 lb (1000 kg)
- Engine: 1 × de Havilland Gipsy Major piston engine, 130 hp
- Maximum speed: 145 mph (235 km/h)
- Cruise speed: 125 mph (201 km/h)
- Range: 615 miles (990 km) (note that G-ACTM had long range tanks fitted)
- Service ceiling: 15,000 ft (4,572 m)