Early life

He attended Wilson's School, which was located in Camberwell, London, at that time. The school moved to the former location of Croydon Airport in 1975.

After completing military service and a brief legal career, Michael Cobham joined the Flight Refuelling business, following the same path. He led the business for many years.

Career

Alan Cobham began working as a commercial apprentice in the City of London when he was a teenager. He enjoyed spending time outdoors, and after finishing his apprenticeship, he worked for a year on his uncle’s farm. He hoped to have a career in estate management. After briefly returning to commercial work in London, he joined the British Army in August 1914. Because of his farming experience, he was assigned to the Royal Army Veterinary Corps. He served on the Western Front from 1914 to 1917, caring for injured horses. He reached the rank of Staff Veterinary Sergeant. Later, he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps and then the Royal Air Force, becoming a Pilot Officer and flying instructor.

After World War I, Cobham became a test pilot for the de Havilland aircraft company. He was the first pilot for the newly formed de Havilland Aeroplane Hire Service. In 1921, he completed a 5,000-mile air tour of Europe, visiting 17 cities in three weeks. Between November 1925 and March 1926, he flew from London to Cape Town and back in his de Havilland DH.50 aircraft. He had replaced the original engine with a more powerful, air-cooled Jaguar. On June 30, 1926, he began a flight from Britain to Australia. When he landed in Melbourne, 60,000 people gathered at Essendon Airport to see his de Havilland DH.50 floatplane (which had been converted to a wheeled undercarriage earlier in Darwin). During the flight to Australia, Cobham’s engineer, Arthur B. Elliot, was shot and killed after they left Baghdad on July 5, 1926. He returned to Britain using the same route. Cobham was knighted in 1926.

On November 25, 1926, Cobham tried but failed to deliver mail to New York City by air from the east. He planned to fly mail from the White Star ocean liner RMS Homeric using a de Havilland DH.60 Moth floatplane. However, rough water prevented him from taking off, and the ship had to tow him back to port. That same year, he was awarded the gold medal by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.

Cobham appeared as himself in the 1927 British war film The Flight Commander, directed by Maurice Elvey. From 1927 to 1928, he flew a Short Singapore flying boat around Africa, landing only in British territory. He wrote about his flights in his own accounts and recalls them in his biography. Films such as With Cobham to the Cape (1926), Round Africa with Cobham (1928), and With Cobham to Kivu (1932) include valuable footage of his journeys. Recent commentaries place his flights within the broader events and culture of the British Empire at the time.

In 1929, Cobham launched his first tour of Britain, called the Municipal Aerodrome Campaign. The goal was to encourage town councils to build local airports to support his work as an aviation consultant. Each event began with free flights for local leaders, followed by free flights for schoolchildren, funded by Sir Charles Wakefield, founder of Castrol, who paid for 10,000 flights. The day ended with paid pleasure flights for the public, which helped cover expenses and generate profit. The tour visited 110 locations between May and October 1929 using a ten-passenger de Havilland DH.61 Giant Moth named Youth of Britain. Cobham called the tour a great success.

In 1932, Cobham started the National Aviation Day displays, a mix of barnstorming and joyriding. This event featured up to 14 aircraft, from single-seaters to modern airliners, and skilled pilots. It toured the country, visiting hundreds of sites, including regular airfields and temporary fields. Known as "Cobham’s Flying Circus," it was very popular, offering thousands of people their first flying experience and promoting "air-mindedness" among the public. In 1933, two simultaneous tours were held, named Number 1 and Number 2. In 1935, two more tours took place, named Astra and Ferry. These continued until the end of the 1935 season. During the British winter of 1932–33, Cobham took his aerial circus to South Africa, believing it would be the first of its kind there. However, he closed the circus after a mid-air disaster in September 1935, when two of his planes collided over Blackpool, killing Captain Hugh P. Stewart, a South African war veteran, and Lilian and Doris Barnes, sisters from Blackpool.

Cobham was one of the founding directors of Airspeed Ltd., an aircraft manufacturing company started by Nevil Shute Norway and Hessell Tiltman. Tiltman had been discharged by the Airship Guarantee Company (a subsidiary of Vickers) after the R101 disaster, which also led to the grounding of the more successful R100. Cobham was an early supporter of the company. His early orders for two "Off Plan" Airspeed Ferrys for his National Aviation Day Limited company helped the company grow.

Cobham’s early experiments with in-flight refuelling used a specially adapted Airspeed Courier. This aircraft was later modified by Airspeed to meet Cobham’s specifications for a non-stop flight from London to India, using in-flight refuelling to extend the flight’s duration.

In 1935, Cobham founded a small airline, Cobham Air Routes Ltd., which flew from London Croydon Airport to the Channel Islands. Months later, after a crash that killed one of his pilots, he sold the airline to Olley Air Service Ltd. and focused on developing in-flight refuelling. Trials were paused at the outbreak of World War II but were revived by the RAF and United States Army Air Forces in the war’s final year.

He once said: "It's a full time job being Alan

Personal life

In the summer of 1922, he married Gladys Lloyd. They later had two sons: Geoffrey, born in 1925, and Michael, born in 1927. Lady Cobham passed away in 1961 at the age of 63. After retiring to the British Virgin Islands, he returned to England, where he died in 1973.

Legacy

In 1997, Cobham was added to the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum. The company he started is still working in the aviation industry as Cobham plc. In 2015, the Royal Air Force Museum in London held an exhibition about Cobham. In 2016, the Royal Air Force showed his Flying Circus. In 2016, he was added to the Airlift/Tanker Association Hall of Fame.