Charles Wolley-Dod

Captain Charles Francis Wolley-Dod (25 August 1892 – 15 or 16 March 1937) was a British pilot and aviation executive. A pioneer of commercial aviation, he was among the first pilots employed by Imperial Airways and later served as its European manager. During the airline's formative years (1924–1939), he played a leading role in establishing and developing its long distance air routes between London and destinations in South Africa, the Middle East, and India.

Wolley-Dod had a reputation for his sense of direction over Europe, rarely requiring the use of a map. In 1927, he co-piloted the aircraft that took Sir Geoffrey Salmond, Sir Samuel Hoare and Lady Maud Hoare in Imperial's first planned civilian flight from London to Delhi.

Wolley-Dod was killed "on flying duty... just before the Second World War" in 1892, in Lahore, British India (now Pakistan), one of four siblings, along with two brothers and one sister. His uncle Owen Cadogan Wolley-Dod was a career officer of the Lancashire Fusilliers. Another uncle, Anthony Hurt Wolley-Dod, was also a soldier and a noted botanist. His grandfather was of Edge Hall, and the ornithologist John Wolley was his great-uncle.

Wolley-Dod was educated at Rugby School, Warwickshire, and initially settled in Canada where he took up farming. He served the RFC in 75(HD) Squadron RFC until 1919. His younger brother Douglas Wolley-Dod was killed in action in France in 1915. A third uncle, Frederic Hova Wolley-Dod, was also a soldier and naturalist; he died of illness overseas in 1919.

In 1923, Wolley-Dod became a pilot for Imperial Airways. with whom he had a son.

Later life

In 1926, he helped develop Imperial's commercial routes so that a route to Baghdad became available, and by 1931, a route to Delhi. He was one of two pilots who flew RFC senior commander Sir Geoffrey Salmond, Cabinet member Sir Samuel Hoare, and Lady Maud Hoare in Imperial's first planned civilian flight from London to Delhi in 1927 in a de Havilland Hercules. He became an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1927.

In 1929, he represented Imperial Airways on the development of flight-proving routes from South Africa, performed jointly with the Air Ministry. When the North African division was created, Wolley-Dod was appointed in charge of it. In 1933, Imperial Airways appointed Wolley-Dod their European manager. (Some sources list Holmes' age as 43.) Holmes had served with the Royal Flying Corps from 1917 to 1927, and then worked as a forest-fire patrol pilot and air surveyor in Canada and the United States before joining Imperial Airways in 1932. He was a resident of Croydon and had a wife and child. The following morning, several planes—an Imperial liner from Croydon and several aircraft of the Sabena Air Line in continental Europe—were dispatched to search for the missing flight crew. The Imperial plane "Ava" was piloted by Capt. L.A. Walters, "one of the Company's senior commanders" and carried other Imperial Airways officials.

Wreckage

Sassoon appeared before Parliament later that day on matters of national finance and was asked about the missing plane. An important figure at Imperial Airways, why Wolley-Dod was on a flight owned by the Railway Air Services and flying over Germany remains unknown.

Legacy

By 1929, Wolley-Dod had become well known for his sense of direction over Europe and rarely required the use of a map. In Beyond the Blue Horizon: On the track of Imperial Airways, Alexander Frater describes Wolley-Dod as "legendary".