The Provenance Of Provosts

I have never seen or photographed a Percival 'Piston' Provost before. It flew over the house this morning and I was struck by its unusual dangling undercarriage which looks as though it ought to retract. I identified and read up on it.

After lunch the same plane returned towards the north, I ran outside and snapped it again. A while later it approached again going south, this time accompanied by a Jet Provost that I've photographed a few times before. I snapped them both. It wasn't long before the PP returned northward bound again and I managed to capture it for the fourth time!

It and I are about the same vintage. It was the last piston-engine basic trainer aircraft to be operated by the RAF. The Percival Aircraft Company was started in England in 1933 by Australian air-racer and barnstormer Edgar Wikner Percival. He was known as "The Hat" because he used to fly in a lounge suit and a fedora. The company was sold to Hunting and Son Ltd in 1944.

I've been trying to find out why these two planes were dubbed Provost. Percival's first aircraft were Gulls then he built a Petrel - still a seabird. After that there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for the choice of name, other than that lots but not all, began with 'P'. Proctor, Prentice, Prince, Pembroke and President. I was very interested to read that in 1954 Percival formed a new company, Edgar Percival Aircraft Limited producing the E.P.9 at Stapleford Aerodrome where my son did his PPL and from where I photographed the Queen's 90th Birthday Fly Past earlier this year.