John (Jack) Savage

Obituary from "Flight" magazine, Sept 27, 1945:

We regret to announce the death of Major J. C. Savage, M.B.E., late R.A.F., which took place on Monday, September 17th. Jack Savage, born in 1891, was a flying pioneer, being apprenticed to Graham White in 1909 and later becoming manager for B. C. Hucks, the first Englishman to loop. As a member of the staff of Flight he wrote technical notes under the nom de plume of "Oiseau Bleu".

After distinguished service in the R.N.A.S. and R.A.F., 1914-1918, he invented sky-writing, and for some years owned and operated the largest British civil air fleet in sky-writing campaigns throughout the Americas, India, Australia and Europe. Later he invented and built searchlights, using a revolutionary reflecting principle for projecting slogans on night clouds. Though Air Ministry intervention, later relaxed, strangled the development of sky projection in England, he sold the invention abroad, and used its basic principles in developing military searchlights. In the period between these major inventions he pioneered crop spraying from aircraft and sponsored the Savage-Bramson anti-stall gear.

As war approached he founded Savage and Parsons, Ltd., at Watford, and directed his brilliance and inventive mind to the design and manufacture of searchlights, sound locators, electric and remote control gear and other highly technical apparatus for the armed forces.

Perhaps the work of which he was most proud was his development, and his firm's production, of Wing Commander Leigh's idea of combating the U-boat menace at night - the phenomenally successful Leigh light.

Jack Savage was mentally and physically big, but the biggest part of him was his heart. What a host of friends will mourn his passing and sympathise with his widow and family.