For his first solo flight, which was successful, he selected Cranwell, the largest airfield in England.
But after another two or three hours' flying he went to Lympne to continue. There he crashed, undershooting the airfield and hitting the fence.
Anxious, officers, including Gillan, rushed up to the crashed machine, to find Philip standing amid the wreckage laughing.
Gillan asked him why he did not put the engine on to pull the plane up to miss the fence. He replied that, although he realized he was undershooting the field, he thought he would just "squeak through."
Sir Philip owned his own plane and flew in it over Europe. But he did not pilot the machine himself. That duty fell to various senior pilots of 601 Squadron.
He always instructed them to fly below 500 feet, declaring that it was so much more.interesting.
Bad weather never prevented his taking off, and during the flights he! would keep up a constant amusing conversation with the pilot He was Under-Secretary for Air in Mr. Baldwin's Government from 1924 to 1929, and again in the National Government from 1931 to 1937, since when he had been First Commissioner of Works. While Under Secretary for Air he undertook journeys of many thousands of miles In 1928 Sir Philip carried out a 17.000 miles air tour from to India and back, to test o
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