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Aviation History
1932
1932 - 0105.PDF
FLIGHT, JANUARY 29, 1932 Aiv Tppxrvsvovt: African Airway Opened THE START FROM CROYDON / "in *HE first air mail for f -) II Cape Town left Croy-V — 111 don at 12.30 p.m. on Wednesday, January 20, when the Handley Page 42, Helena, left the aerodrome for Paris carrying some 20,000 letters and 150 parcels, as well as three official passengers, namely, Mr. Bertram, Assistant Director of Civil Aviation ; Air Vice-Marshal 1 Sir Vyell Vyvyan, a Director of Imperial Airways ; and Lady Vyvyan. The commander of the machine was Mr. A. B. H. Youell. For the first time in the history of British civil flying, a large plaque inscribed " Royal Mail," with the Royal initials in gold letters below, was affixed to the side of the aeroplane. A number of ordinary passengers for Paris also embarked on the machine, and seemed much im pressed by the ceremony which attended the start, and evidently were very pleased to find them selves on board such an impor tant aeroplane. As a matter of fact, the part played by Helena in the opening of the African air way was confined to a normal flight to Paris. There the mails and the three passengers went on by train to Brindisi, and the really exciting part of the flight only began at that seaport, when they embarked on a " Kent " flying boat for Athens and Alex- , , <•__„, andria. The African airway is concerned with the cargo the war-cry "Buy Bntish. The soup was made trom to be carried through, not with anv spectacular flight by Ascension turtle (someone asked what course would t>e any one machine or any one type of machine. As was dedicated to the Forced Landing) ; there was Cape cray- pointed out in some detail in our last issue, no less than fish, African citrus salad,/New Jersey potatoes (perhaps £ , ___ ,_ • _ J i___ T :„i A: — „O^K " i<.rC»i, nmr nntatnps " miffht have made matters clearer), BEFORE THE START : From left to right :—Lady Vyvyan, Maj. Ewart Grog an, D.S.O. ("The neolithic survival of a bygone age"), Air Vice-Marshal *>ir Vyell Vyvyan, K.C.B, D.S.O., Lieut. Col. Barrett-Lennard, C.B.E., and Lieut-Col. S«r George Beharrell, D.S.O. (FLIGHT Photo.) five types are being used by Imperial Airways on each journey to Cape Town. For the stages which each type will cover, we would refer our readers to the map which we published on page 74 of our issue last week. Imperial Airways are specialists in working out the de tails, technical and economic, of a great and novel under taking. They are also quick to see and mark the historic ' Jersey new potatoe might Afrikaans fruit ice (we gathered that the ice was not brought direct from the Union in cold storage), and Kenya coffee. Perhaps the happiest touch of the day was the presence of Maj. Ewart Grogan, D.S.O., the first man who ever walked from South Africa to Cairo. The present writer taking, lney are also quick to see and marK tne nisroriL MUCU ^^ ^-^ /*~~r ~ , ,, Af • , ?TriTn sjmirh to importance of an occasion like thai of last Wednesday remembers well reading ^« b^k A^ from gutli to week. They had invited a number of important and North," with intense interest a^ut *e ye*1901-, a™ interesting personalities to be present at the start, and was struck by a remark of an expenenced^™oun™ afterwards entertained them to a most recherche lunch at ought not to have put m that passage about thefunded the aerodrome hotel. Lieut. Col. Sir George Beharrell, buck , out then he s so young At Croydon I set eyes D.S.O., received the guests and presided at the lunch, on this interesting man for the first *n*,juid the hrst while other directors present were Lieut. Col. J. Barrett- remark which I heard him make vvas I am * ™£™g Lennard, C.B.E., and Mr. H.Scott Paine. All the -survival of a bygone age Th»bth^^5™^ persons arrangements were made with that thoughtful attention to revenges. Ma,. Grogan and some otherJ^ff%^t detail which makes Imperial Airways so popular with were given a flight mtfW^^g.^e*DH^Sit% their passengers and their guests. Large motor omnibuses of Croydon, and [was; toldthat Ma^ ^°San / met the party at Airways Terminus at Victoria Station, to Cape Town m the next machme_to go. "f and conveyed them to Croydon aerodrome in something plane was f°»°wed by ^- Ro> Tuckett m a Fuss not very far short of record time. The lunch was a credit with a kinematographer on boardL so as ^o to the hosts and to the hotel management alike, the record of this first mail flight to ^aPe ^g ook ofi speeches were considerably above the average merit of We should like ^ ^ble to say that H«e « after-lunch oratory on such occasions, and the wine list punctually on the stroke' of 12 30, *n& weshouid prooa y and the menu put into practice, so far as was possible, have done so (regardless of where we might go wnen 97
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