Howard Pixton
Howard Pixton was an early British aviator who won the 1914 Schneider Trophy air race held in Monaco flying a Sopwith Tabloid seaplane powered by a 100 hp Gnome Monosoupape rotary engine, completing the race at an average speed of 86.83 miles per hour.
Career
Cecil Howard Pixton started his flying career in 1910 at Brooklands, gaining Royal Aero Club Aviator's Certificate No. 50, and became friendly with A V Roe. Together they started the Avro School of Flying and Pixton became the first test pilot for Avro. He was commissioned in the Royal Flying Corps and joined the Air Investigation Department at the Royal Aircraft Establishment.
In his flying career from June 1910 to 1918 he flew about 80 different aircraft types and logged about 3,500 flight hours.
In 1919 he settled in Windermere, in the Lake District, where he rented a hangar from which he flew two Avro 504L floatplanes for A V Roe. He operated charter flights including flying newspapers to the Isle of Man, on which he would also take fare-paying passengers. He also did pleasure flights and flight training. After that, he started a car garage and ran a taxi and coach tours.
Around 1929 he moved to Devon where he was the ground engineer at Haldon Aerodrome.
He died in 1972 and is buried at Jurby, Isle of Man.
