Fred Slingsby

Who was Fred Slingsby?

Frederick 'Fred' Nicholas Slingsby MM was the founder of Slingsby Sailplanes Ltd.

Slingsby joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1914 as a gunner/observer. On one sortie the pilot was killed. Slingsby climbed out of his gun position and into the pilot's cockpit and regained control of the aircraft. He flew the aircraft back to the British lines. For this, he was awarded the Military Medal. After he left the service, now the RAF, in 1920, he bought a partnership in a wood-working and furniture factory in Queen Street, Scarborough.

Slingsby was a founder member of Scarborough Gliding Club, one of the first British gliding clubs in February 1930. By the end of that year, it had 40 active flying members. The first gliders were built in his factory in Queen Street, Scarborough. This was transferred to the town's abandoned tram sheds, before a completely new factory was built in Kirbymoorside in 1934 and he abandoned furniture-making.

His first glider, in 1931, was a Falcon, which was a British version of the RRG Falke, built by Rhön-Rossitten Gesellschaft and designed by Alexander Lippisch. In 1933, Slingsby started producing RFD Daglings, as the Type 3. The initial wave of interest in gliding in Britain tailed off and by 1932 Scarborough Gliding Club was in financial trouble. It merged with another club, and further mergers produced the Yorkshire Gliding Club, based at Sutton Bank, near Thirsk. Philip Wills and Fred Slingsby negotiated the lease of the land at Sutton Bank.