| Captain Gordon Store, MVO, OBE | ||
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b. Kimberley, South Africa, on January 28, 1906. In 1931 Gordon was co-pilot and navigator on the 19-year-old Peggy Salaman's record-breaking flight to South Africa in a De Havilland Puss Moth. They set off on Oct 30, 1931 from Lympne in Kent and five days, six hours and 40 minutes later they landed at the Cape, knocking more than a day off the record. Young Gordon was educated at Kimberley Boys High School, at Mill Hill and Imperial College, London. He learned to fly at the De Havilland school and in 1926 was commissioned into the Reserve of Air Force Officers. After his flight with Peggy Salaman in 1931, Store remained in South Africa as a director of Aero Services, operating from a grass airfield at Wynburg. Three years after setting this record Gordon Store joined Imperial Airways, serving on the airline's African and Empire routes before beginning a long association with the Atlantic in 1939, when he commanded one of the three crews which operated the first regular transatlantic services.After the war Store was recruited by Air Vice-Marshal Don Bennett of "Pathfinder" fame as operations manager of British South American Airways, which merged with BOAC in 1949. Store became a Douglas Stratocruiser captain. d. October 4, aged 87. |
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