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A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as G-AEXF, the Shuttleworth Collection’s Mew Gull, built at Gravesend in 1936 as ZS-AHM ‘The Golden City’ for the Schlesinger Race to Johannesburg, bought by Alex Henshaw in 1937, in which he won the 1938 King’s Cup at 236 mph and in February 1939 flew from Gravesend to the Cape and back in four days, ten hours and 16 minutes; hidden in France through the war, rebuilt several times since and with the Collection at Old Warden since October 2013: Edgar Percival’s single-seat wooden racing monoplane of 24 ft span, with a long, slim fuselage, a low tapered wing, spatted main wheels and an inverted six-cylinder de Havilland engine, shown standing tail-down on its main wheels and tail skid as photographed at Old Warden in October 2026 after its refurbishment: gloss white overall with a dark racing-green nose and a green flash narrowing to a cheat line along the fuselage side, green wing and tailplane tips, black ‘G-AEXF’ on both fuselage sides and across the wings, a black racing number ‘5’ on the rudder, a polished spinner and a two-bladed propeller with yellow tips (shape from Harry Robinson’s drawings in Model Aviation, February 1981, measured on G-AEXF itself, with the spinner, fin, tail, canopy, wheel fairings and markings following photographs of G-AEXF). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (651 KB)
Data plate
Specification
- First flight1934
- Built6
- Top speed235 mph
- Enginede Havilland Gipsy Six six-cylinder inverted inline, 200 hp, driving a two-bladed propeller (165 hp Napier Javelin in the prototype; Henshaw’s G-AEXF had a Gipsy Six R and later a Gipsy Six II, and now flies with a 205 hp Gipsy Queen II)
- Crew1
- Wingspan7.32 m
- Length6.17 m
- Height2.08 m
- In serviceFive or six built, 1934–1938; air racing in Britain, France and the 1936 Schlesinger Race to Johannesburg; G-AEXF, the only original survivor, with the Shuttleworth Collection since 2013
- RoleSingle-seat racing monoplane
- MakerPercival Aircraft Co., Gravesend, Britain
- UK collections1
First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Percival E.2H Mew Gull (1936) modelled here.
History
The Mew Gull
Edgar Percival was an Australian pilot who set up his own aircraft company at Gravesend in 1933 and made his name with the Gull, a fast three-seat cabin monoplane. For air racing he designed something much smaller: a single-seat, low-wing wooden monoplane built as tightly as possible round a pilot and one engine, with a long slim fuselage, a cockpit set far back near the tail and spatted main wheels. The prototype, G-ACND, first flew on 22 March 1934 with a 165 hp Napier Javelin, and Percival raced it in that year’s King’s Cup at 191 mph without being placed.
Rebuilt with a new wing carrying flaps, a much longer fuselage and a 200 hp de Havilland Gipsy Six, much of the redesign by Arthur Bage, it became the E.2, and in July 1935 Guy de Chateaubrun won the Coupe Armand Esders in France with it. Three E.2H production aircraft followed in 1936, and in 1937 a single E.3H, G-AFAA, with a slightly smaller wing and tail. Two E.2Hs were built for the Schlesinger Race from Portsmouth to Johannesburg in September 1936, but neither finished: ZS-AHM retired at Belgrade and ZS-AHO was wrecked in a forced landing in Southern Rhodesia while well ahead of the field.
The Mew Gulls dominated British racing just before the war. Charles Gardner won the 1937 King’s Cup in G-AEKL at an average of 234 mph, and Alex Henshaw won it in 1938 in G-AEXF at 236 mph, still a class record for the race. Percival himself raced G-AFAA from 1937 to 1939. The war ended it all: G-AEKL was destroyed by bombing at Lympne, G-AFAA was written off while on loan to de Havilland for propeller trials, and only G-AEXF survived.
This airframe
Percival Mew Gull G-AEXF
G-AEXF was built at Gravesend in 1936 as ZS-AHM, ‘The Golden City’, for A. M. Miller of South Africa to fly in the Schlesinger Race; he retired at Belgrade. Bill Humble bought it and swapped it with Alex Henshaw for a Leopard Moth, and Henshaw re-registered it G-AEXF, won the 1937 Folkestone Trophy with it and, after lowering the decking and fitting a Gipsy Six R and a constant-speed propeller, the 1938 King’s Cup. On 5 February 1939 he left Gravesend for Cape Town, reaching it in 39 hours 25 minutes, and was back four days, ten hours and 16 minutes after he had left. Sold to a Frenchman, Victor Vermoral, late in 1939, it was hidden from the Germans in a French hangar through the war, then brought home by Hugh Scrope in 1950 and raced again into the 1960s. Tom Storey and Martin Barraclough rebuilt it in the late 1970s, Desmond Penrose restored it to its 1939 form after 1985 and again after a forced landing in 1991, and from 2002 the Real Aeroplane Company flew it from Breighton, including at Reno in 2003. The Shuttleworth Collection bought it in October 2013 and flies it at Old Warden. The model shows it as photographed there in October 2026 after its refurbishment, standing tail-down on its main wheels and tail skid: gloss white overall with a dark racing-green nose and a green flash narrowing to a cheat line along the fuselage side, green wing and tailplane tips, black ‘G-AEXF’ on both sides and ‘G-A’ and ‘EXF’ across the wings, a black racing number ‘5’ on the rudder, and a polished spinner with a yellow-tipped two-bladed propeller. The shape follows Harry Robinson’s drawings in Model Aviation (February 1981), measured on G-AEXF itself in 1965 and 1980, with the short spinner, fin, tailplane, canopy, wheel fairings and markings taken from photographs of the aircraft today.
Where to see one
In the gazetteer
The gazetteer records the Mew Gull in one UK collection. The airframe modelled here is marked.