A Dutch aeroplane a forced landing in a field opposite the Abbotsford Gardens, on the Cuckfield-Burgess Hill Road, on Friday owing to mist. Despite the fact that the plane, a twin-engined cabin Monospar is a fast one having a landing speed of 90 miles an hour, it was brought down safely.

The pilot was M. Wilhehmus Adrianus Rademaker and be had aa a passenger M. Tjalling Visser, who also holds a pilot’s certificate. Both are connected with a manufacturing firm at Heakend, near Flushing. According to a statement made by them, they arrived from Holland on Wednesday, and on Friday they left Rochester to fly to Feltham, Middlesex, but they had to land owing to bad visibility, being then south of their course. As dusk was falling, they decided to stay the night in Burgess Hill, and they resumed their journey on Saturday morning.

Mid Sussex Times, 26 November 1935

Photo: General Aircraft Monospar ST-12 [VH-UTH].This is the only surviving Monospar from the total production of 45. She was built in 1935 for New England Airways in Australia and registered as VH-UTH. She was flown back to the UK in 1961 but by 1968 was in a derelict condition and stored. She was one of the first airframes to join what is now the Newark Air Museum and her restoration has been taking place ever since. A considerable amount of the work was done ‘off-site’ by the Cotswold Aircraft Restoration Group at RAF Innsworth, with her arriving back at Newark during 2007. Reassembled and nearing completion, she is seen in Hangar 1, Newark Air Museum Winthorpe, Nottinghamshire, UK 7th August 2020. Wikimedia public domain image.

Contributed by Malcolm Davison.

Visit Cuckfield Museum, follow the link for details https://cuckfieldmuseum.org.