FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1926
1926 - 0236.PDF
—•••• • —%m APRIL 8, 1926 arrived at Croydon, where a large crowd had gathered to witness the ceremony, the occupants were received by Sir Eric Geddes, chairman of Imperial Airways, Sir Samual Hoare and Lady Hoare, and Sir Philip Sassoon. The four machines lined up alongside the three-engined Handley Page " Hamp- stead " and three H.P. \V.8's—the forerunners of the new W.lO's. Then Lady Maud Hoare performed the christening cere- mony, which was somewhat of a novel character. Lady Maud stood beneath the nose of the first machine—a W.10— suspended from which was a silken rope, which she pulled and thus ripped a superimposed square of fabric away from the fuselage. This exposed to view the name of the machine— " The City of London "—and simultaneously a flight of homing pigeons were released from the cockpit, and, after circling overhead, the birds flew off home with the glad tidings. The three other W.lO's were similarly christened " City of Pretoria," " City of Ottawa," and " City of Melbourne," while the " Hampstead " machine was christened " City of New York " in honour of the numerous American visitors who make use of Imperial Airways. The Hon. Peter Larkin, High Commissioner for Canada, personally asked Lady Maud to pull the rope when christening " The City of Ottawa.' As she named each machine, Lady Maud wished it " God speed." Some of the visitors, including Sir Samuel and Lady Hoare, were then taken up for a flight. After the christening ceremony a large party of guests were entertained at luncheon at the Aerodrome Hotei. Proposing the health of the guests, Sir Eric Geddes said that civil aviation was in its infancy, but small as it was, British aviation was not a discreditable member of the family. In the two years of its existence, Imperial Airways, starting with a nondescript fleet, had now 75 per cent, of one type and 25 per cent, of another type of craft—thus achieving a simpler basis of operation—and had flown 1,750,000 miles and had carried 23,000 passengers, in perhaps the worst climatic conditions in the civilised world. For more than a year they had maintained a 100 per cent, safety. These figures were accomplished with remarkable regularity considering the- difficulties and he wished to give credit to the pilots and staff for that result. The new machines christened that morning were not, he said, the end of their progress, and they had other machines coming which would, he hoped, mark a further step forward. Civil flying, he stated, must be regular and steady ; the " taxi-business " to European capitals was not Empire aviation, and the Cairo to Karachi service, which was to be started with 3-engined machines within 12 months, would be the first link in the Empire air chain. The service to India would at first be once a fortnight, but once they had proved that it could be carried out regularly, he hoped India would insist upon it being a weekly service. He further hoped that it would eventually be extended to Australia, while he was confident the air route to the Cape would be regularly flown. Sir Samuel Hoare, in responding, referred to the pioneer work done by Mr. Handley Page. He thought that, although Imperial Airways had only been in existence for two years— and organised civil air lines for five or six years—very sub- stantial progress had been made. One Imperial Airways pilot had already made 3,000 cross-channel flights, he was informed. The present stage marked the passage from tho small single-engined machine to the multi-engined machines, which were intended primarily for the Continental routes. It was not so much the developmentof these short distance routes to the Continent that they were aiming at—valuable and important as they were—but the far greater development of air routes from one part of the Empire to another. He hoped that these new machines which had been named after the chi^f cities of the Empire, would carry, not bombs and torpedoes, but a message of peace and goodwill. He wished more than that—that they would prove to be the forerunners of great Empire air routes, along which machines would pass regularly and safely from the capital of the Empire to the chief cities of the Dominions, and from the chief cities of the Dominions to London, and would carry between the Dominions and ourselves a message of business solidarity, of political unity, and of family affection. Mr. S. H. Evans' Paper THE paper, " The Performance of Modern Aircraft—withspecial reference to the Variable Wing," which Mr. S. H. Evans was to have read before the Inst. of AeronauticalEngineers on April 13, has been postponed, but instead, Lieut. Lawrence A. Wingfield, M.C., D.S.C., will read a paper on"Some Reminiscences of Ten Years Ago." The lecture will be non-technical and open to all—ladies included. Danish Flight to Tokyo THE two Danish pilots, Lieuts. Botved and Husekend, who are flying from Copenhagen to Tokyo—in two Fokker C.V. 'planes (400 h.p. Lorraine Dietrich engines) and not Junkers machines as previously reported—have been making good progress. On March 31 they reached Calcutta, and continued on to Rangoon on April 3. Proceeding next day, Lieut. Botved reached Bankok, but his companion crashed en route, but escaped unhurt. Brussels- Congo- Brussels LIEUT. MEDAETS, with Lieut. Verhaegen and Adj. Coppens, who recently made a successful flight from Brussels to Kinshasa, started on the return journey on March 29, and flew as far as Mongalla (about 1,550 miles). On April 2 they made a 9 hours flight on to Atbara, and continued the flight as far as Cairo on April 4. They left Cairo for Athens on April 6. Good going ! ALL BRITISH FOR ARGENTINA : A group of Avro type 504K biplanes, fitted with 100 h.p. Bristol " Lucifer" engines, which have been supplied, through the agency of Vickers, Ltd., by A.D.C. Aircraft, Ltd., to the Argentine Government. 204
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
