RADLEY & MOORHOUSE monoplane, Bleriot type (Portholme, Hunts)

   The Bleriot monoplane was a machine that was copied, with variations, by a number of small establishments, when embarking on construction work. The Radley and Moorhouse concern at Portholme was no exception. A two-seater was flying from about October 1911 and was used by Moorhouse to gain his Aviators Certificate No.147 on 7 October 1911. The following month he was testing a new R & M two-seater. This was the machine illustrated on the 14 December 1911 in The Aeroplane.
   A machine flown by Moorhouse into third place in the Aerial Derby on 8 June 1912 had changes made for racing. It may have been the same machine, converted into a single-seater, with the addition of a streamlined fairing around the pilot's cockpit on the fuselage top. The wheels had been given fabric covers.
   In April 1912 Moorhouse had left Huntingdon and established himself at Brooklands with the single-seater machine and later in the year undertook to fly a French Breguet in the Military Trials. On the flight from France on 4 August 1912, with two passengers, the machine crashed in Kent and took no part in the trials.

   Power: 50hp Gnome seven-cylinder air-cooled rotary