Wilfred Theodore Blake

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Major Wilfred Theodore Blake (1894 - 1968) was a pioneer aviator, author and traveller.

The man who led the first attempt to fly round the world in 1922. The pilot for this mission was Norman MacMillan. The aircraft was a de Havilland DH9A bought from the Royal Air Force. His ambitious round-the-world trip was cancelled after the first stage of the flight after it came to grief in Calcutta.

In 1951 he drove his Standard Vanguard motor car on a record journey around South America from La Paz to Rio de Janeiro taking in Peru, Chile, Argentina and Paraguay along the way.

He served with the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. There is bench in his memory at St Columb Major Parish Church, Cornwall.

[edit] Books by Blake

• The Pampas and the Andes,[1]

• Ports of Call, London, Grayson & Grayson. (1933)
• Flying Round the World, London, Heath Cranton Limited. Extracted from The Geographical Journal. Vol LXI No 4. April 1923., 1923.
• Flying. George Allen & Unwin Limited, London, 1923
• Desert Adventures
• Thailand Journey,[2] London, The Travel Book Club. (1955).
• Travels Of A White Elephant: Autobiography Of An English Adventurer. Taplinger Publishing, [3] (1960)
• Rhodesia and Nyasaland Journey London, The Travel Book Club, (1960)
• Central African Survey - Facts and Figures of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Alvin Redman. London . (1961)
• Portuguese journey. London, (1963)
• Spanish Journey or, Springtime in Spain NY, Taplinger. 1960

The following books by Blake appeared under the name of Wing Adjutant

• The Royal Flying Corps in the War / by "Wing Adjutant". - London, Cassell, (1918)
• Plane Tales from the Skies London & New York, Cassell, (1918) (Tales of dog-fighting over the trenches during WWI )
• Over "Over There"
• To-day with the R.A..F. Cassell, (1939)

[edit] References

http://www.airforce.forces.gc.ca/equip/historical/DH9Alst_e.asp

http://www.frontiersmenhistorian.info/world.htm