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Aviation History
1929
1929 - 0780.PDF
FLIGHT, APRIL 18, 1929 ENGLAND-INDIA-ENGLAND Air Moil Service in [" FLIGHT " Photographs THE FIRST AIR MAILS FROM INDIA: The Armstrong-Whitworth "Argosy" airliner, "City ofGlasgow," arrives at Croydon three minutes ahead of time, and delivers the first air mail from India, on April 14, 1929. TO India and back in fifteen days! Such is the latestrecord achievement of British Civil Aviation. At2.13 p.m.—two minutes before schedule time—on April 14, the Imperial Airways Armstrong-Whitworth"Argosy" airliner, "City of Glasgow," piloted by Capt. O. P. Jones, completed the final stage of the first India-England Air Mail, which followed the successful inauguration, on Mar. 30, of the first outward journey. The mails—520 lbs.weight, or about 15,000 letters—left Karachi (per D.H. " Hercules ") on April 7, and there were also four " Official "passengers from India—regular passengers are not, at present, being carried. They were Air Vice-Marshal Sir GeoffreySalmond, Air Officer Commanding Royal Air Force, India, who was returning home on four months' leave ; ViscountChetwynd, Vice-Chairman of Imperial Airways ; his daughter, the Hon. Eve Chetwynd; and Air Vice-Marshal Sir VyellVyvyan, a Director of Imperial Airways, who made the outward trip from England to India as well. Sir SamuelHoare, Secretary of State for Air, made a fifth passenger at Alexandria, after having completed some 5,000 miles flyingto the borders of Uganda and back in connection with the proposed African air route. Over the first section of the route home—Karachi toAlexandria—the " Hercules " made good progress, being, as reported last week, well ahead of schedule time at Baghdad.The Indian mail, it is stated, was so heavy that it was not possible to take in the Iraq mails at Baghdad, and these weresent on to Alexandria by the R.A.F. From Alexandria to Genoa all the mails and passengerstransferred to the Short " Calcutta " flying-boat, and after the short train journey from Genoa to Basel, the final stagewas completed in the " Argosy " machine. A number of people gathered at Croydon aerodrome onSunday afternoon to greet the travellers from India. Among those present were Lady Maude Hoare, Air Marshal Sir JohnSalmond, Sir Atul Chatterjee (High Commissioner for India), Col. Stewart Patterson (Political Aide-de-Camp to theSecretary of State for India), Sir Samuel and Lady Instone, Sir Alan Cobham—who carried out the Survey Flight of theLondon-India Air Route in 1924-5 on a D.H.50, with Sir Sefton Brancker as passenger—and Lady Cobham, Mr. G.Woods Humphrey, Mr. F. G. L. Bertram, and several other well-known personalities in the World of Aeronautics.Describing his experiences of this first Empire Air Route, Sir Samuel Hoare said ; •' I think this last fortnight has been a very important one in the history of civil aviation. First of all, there is thissuccessful opening of the mail service, which has gone extra- ordinarily well. The outward mail got to India in time, andthe inward mail, as you see, has arrived absolutely on the tick. Few people can have any idea of the enormous amount ofwork involved. I wrote a letter in London to the Viceroy of India," Sir Samuel Hoare added, " which was delivered inDelhi 7i days afterwards. Lord Chetwynd, Sir Geoffrey Salmond, and Sir Vyell Vyvyan were having a meal inKarachi last Sunday and will be in their own homes in London and the country to-night. Miss Chetwynd had until lastSunday never been in an aeroplane before, and the enterprise and courage of the younger generation augurs well for thefuture of British aviation generally. " I think my own journey does show once again the greatregularity and safety of not only British civil aviation, but of British military flying services also. After I arrived inAfrica I got into a Fairey 3F machine, and with other Air Force officials went off to see as much as we could of theprojected African route. We averaged, I suppose, about 750 miles a day. We struck the Sudan in probably the hottestmonth of the year, and yet we completed the whole of our programme, getting almost to Uganda before we turned back.Because of the heat, it was often necessary to fly at a very great height, sometimes as high as 12,000 ft. It was anexperience to come down from the comparatively cool upper air on to the ground where there was a temperature of between115 and 120 degrees. " We hope that the service from Egypt to Cape Town maybe started on April 1 next year. It may be possible to have some sections of it working before then. To get over theproblems of the heat it is probable that flights will be made very early in the morning. " It seems strange to think that only a few days ago 1 wa>sleeping in the open air, because the heat prevented rest indoors, and was awakened by hippopotami snorting in theNile. The very next night I was sleeping in a garden with two hyenas running about outside and making the most awfulnoises." Sir Vyell Vyvyan, speaking of his 10,000-mile flight toIndia and back, said their total flying time was about 54 hour?, both ways and in the enclosed cabin machine, as used on thisroute, the heat was much less apparent—at 6,000 ft. over the Persian Gulf they were quite comfortable. The only troubleswere sand storms, and as it was not possible to fly over all ol them plenty of time had to be allowed in case of delay through 312
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