Catastrophe at Farnborough: How the Death of John W. C. "Pee Wee" Judge on 11 September 1970 at the SBAC Air Show in a Wallis WA-117 Autogyro Changed British Popular Rotorcraft History

At 1414 hours on 11 September 1970 John W. C. "Pee Wee" Judge lost control of a Wallis WA-117 autogyro and plunged to his death in front of the viewing stand at the Society of British Aerospace Companies (SBAC) air show at Farnborough. From loss of control until the fatal impact was less than 7 seconds, and as the aircraft was the center of attention (including HRH Queen Elizabeth II), it was photographed from different angles by high quality cine film cameras which enabled extensive analysis. The official accident report would not be issued for 3 and half years, essentially confirming Wing Commander Ken Wallis' own conclusions based on a frame-by-frame viewing of the films - the end result was that Wallis, the most famous autogyro pilot and popularizer since his stellar performance with his WA-116 autogyro "Little Nellie" in the 1967 James Bond film You Only Live Twice, exited from public life and pursued “the autogyro as a working aircraft” for the next 42 years. Although he would later assume the ceremonial role as “Patron of the British Rotorcraft Society” and of The Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum, he steadfastly refused to facilitate construction of his autogyros by amateur builders. (Two unsuccessful models, the Wombat and the Dingbat, would eventually be built by others, the result of what Wallis would label “eyeball engineering”). His sui generis status as a 'developer' had allowed him to develop the most advanced autogyro models (and begin dominating world records for the next three decades), but the British popular rotorcraft movement would not see any benefits, and never recover from the impact in public perception and governmental skepticism as to the safety of the small autorotational aircraft. Coupled with the fact that Igor Bensen had discovered that Campbell Aircraft, its British licensee, had been selling Bensen Gyrocopter plans with its own label (and without paying royalties) and withdrawn its franchise, the popular rotorcraft movement entered into a spiral that was accentuated by the governmental scrutiny of its safety record during the 3 and half years it took to issue the Farnborough accident report, the result of which the British CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) came to be known as the "Campaign Against Aviation", a characterization still employed almost a half-century later. The "catastrophe at Farnborough" marked the beginning of the decline of the popular rotorcraft movement in Britain and to a moribund state from which it has yet to recover.