Wilfred Parke

Lieutenant Wilfred Parke RN (1889–1912) was a British airman and became the first aviator to recover from an accidental spin.

Family
Parkes's father was Alfred Watlington Parke, the Rector of Uplyme and his mother was Hilda Fort. He was the grandson of Charles Joseph Parke of Henbury in Dorset a former High Sheriff of the county and was a great nephew of General William Parke as well as being great great grandson of the Reverend Charles Wickstead Ethelston who read the riot act at the Peterloo riots and signed the arrest for the speakers.

Career
In April 1911 Parke took his pilot's certificate and joined the naval wing of the RFC. In August 1912, he became the first aviator to recover from an accidental spin when the Avro G cabin biplane, with which he had just broken a world endurance record, entered a spin at 700 feet above ground level at Larkhill Aerodrome on Salisbury Plain. Parke attempted to recover from the spin by increasing engine speed, pulling back on the stick, and turning into the spin, with no effect. The aircraft descended 450 feet, and observers braced themselves for a fatal crash.

Parke was disabled by centrifugal forces but was still considering a means of escape. In an effort to neutralize the forces pinning him against the right side of the cockpit, he applied full right rudder, and the aircraft levelled out fifty feet above the ground. With the aircraft now under control, Parke climbed, made another approach, and landed safely.

In spite of the discovery of "Parke's technique," also known as the "Parke Dive", pilots were not taught spin-recovery procedures until the beginning of World War I.

Death
Parke was killed a few months later on 15 December 1912 when a Handley Page monoplane, in which he was travelling from Hendon to Oxford, crashed.