Irish ‘Mad Mechanic’ Harry Ferguson Takes To The Air 1909 | Season 2 – Episode 96
Wings Jan 13, 2023
The first Irishman to build and fly his own airplane was Henry George Harry Ferguson, commonly known as Harry Ferguson the Irish engineering genius.
Harry Ferguson (1884 – 1960) was born at Lake House, Growell, near Dromore, County Down into a large farming family. In 1902 he left home, moved to Belfast and went to work in his brother Joe’s bicycle and car repair business.
It was while working with Joe that Harry developed a taste for speed and adventure and to help promote the Ferguson family business, he began motorcycle racing in 1904. Inspired by the exploits of the American Wright brothers who made the first powered flight in North Carolina in 1903 Harry also developed a keen interest in aviation and in 1909 as part of a fact-finding mission he attended air shows at Blackpool beach and Rheims in north-eastern France.
On his return to Ireland and armed with notes and designs from the European air-shows and taking inspiration from Louis Blériot who flew his Blériot XI across the English channel on July 25th 1909, Harry compelled his brother Joe to turn the focus of his J.B. Ferguson & Company towards designing and constructing the first Irish heavier-than-air craft to fly.
In the Ferguson & Company Belfast workshop work began in earnest on the Ferguson monoplane and a 30 ft long fuselage was made from a wooden box construction, tensioned with wire and covered with Irish linen. The 34 ft long wings were constructed in the same way and a 35 hp V8 JAP engine was fitted in the nose. After many changes and improvements, the brothers detached the wings and placed them in an open-top car and towed their new aircraft behind a car up to Hillsborough Great Park in County Down to make their first attempts at powered flight.
Even with the genius of Harry Ferguson, he failed on his first attempt due to propeller trouble and on many subsequent attempts to take to the skies due a combination of learning-as-you-go to fly the plane, engine failure and issues with flight-control surfaces, several crashes, in one of which he was knocked unconscious and bad weather. However, like many an engineer he learnt from his mistakes, refined his skills and designs, and kept on trying.
The Ferguson brothers were back in Hillsborough Great Park on December 31st 1909, and the Ferguson monoplane finally lifted off the ground and travelled approximately 0.5 km and Harry Ferguson became the first Irishman to fly and the first native of Ireland or Britain to build and fly his own airplane.
Ferguson was driven to succeed not just in achieving engineering greatness but also his desire to do so ahead of his aviation rival at the time, the aeronautical engineer Lilian Bland (1878 – 1971) who after designing and constructing her own plane ‘The Mayfly’ became the first woman in Ireland to take to the air at Randalstown, County Antrim on the shores of Lough Neagh in August 1910. More on the Irish aviation achievements of Lillian Bland in a future article.
Harry Ferguson went on to refine his plane and made several successful flights from the beaches at Magilligan strand, County Derry/ Londonderry. On August 23rd 1910 he took off from Magilligan beach and flew around 5 miles to Myroe junction with Liverpudlian, Rita Marr and she then became the first lady passenger in Ireland.
Also, in 1910 Harry won a prize of £100 awarded to him by the Sport’s Committee of Newcastle County Down for the first powered flight over a minimum distance of two miles. According to a newspaper report of the achievement “He flew a distance of almost three miles along the foreshore at a low altitude varying between 50 and 150 feet”.
However, while his designs were a work in progress and constantly improving, Harry Ferguson was akin to the Magpie bird and it’s love of shiny objects and the lustre of flight soon waned and he moved on to other engineering feats including transforming the world of agriculture with his hydraulic three-point linkage, developing the Ferguson TE20 tractor, Ferguson Formula 4×4 system, the Ferguson R5 estate car and the P99 Formula 1 car. Today the legacy of the Ferguson name lives on in the Massey-Ferguson tractor company.
In 2016 BBC NI produced ‘The Great Flying Challenge” hosted by Dick Strawbridge where a team of enthusiasts built and flew a recreation of Ferguson’s monoplane. A replica of the Ferguson monoplane is on display in the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum.
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If you have an idea for a story, email Kevin Reid [email protected]
Check out our previous Ireland Made videos on the other fantastic engineering inventions of Harry Ferguson:
1963 Ferguson TE20 fully restored by Donegal father & son | Season 1 – Episode 8
Ferguson P99 First AWD F1 Car | Season 1 – Episode 64
In 1965 You Could Plough a Road With a Ferguson | Season 2 – Episode 85
Harry Ferguson Mastered Tractors, but Couldn’t Tame Cars 1950 – ’80 | Season 3 – Episode 76
If you have a story to share, email Kevin Reid [email protected]
Sources of information
- BBC NI The Great Flying Challenge
- Graces Guides
- Hops and Flight – a Roll-Call of Early Powered Take-Offs – Smith & Charles
- Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Aircraft
- The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
- Ulster Aviation Society
- www.ferguson-museum.co.uk
- www.harryfergusonlegacy.com
