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Aviation History
1932
1932 - 0386.PDF
FLIGHT, APRIL 22, 1932 Qir transport NEW TRANS-AFRICAN AIR FLEET FOR IMPERIAL AIRWAYS First Armstrong-Whitworth "Atalanta" Monoplane Nearly Ready IMPERIAL AIRWAYS announce that finishing touches are now being made to the first of the £150,000 fleet of eight new 4-engined passenger monoplanes, which are being designed and built specially for operation on the 5,500-miles trans-African airline between Cairo and Cape Town. It is expected that this first machine will be ready for preliminary trials within the next few weeks and that the entire fleet will be in service on the African airway towards the end of this year. They will be known as the Atalanta class, and will bear the following individual names: — Atalanta, Andromeda, Artemis, Astraea, Amalthea, Areihusa, Athena, Aurora. This great new British air fleet is being constructed by Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft, Ltd., of Coventry. Each of the monoplanes will, when fully loaded, weigh nearly S tons, of which more than 2 tons will be available for the accommodation of crew, passengers, mails and goods. They will each have a span from wing tip to wing tip of 90 ft., while from nose to tail they will measure 71 ft. 6 in. Driven by four Armstrong Siddeley double '' Mongoose '' engines, developing a total of 1,400 h.p., they will not only have ample power to ascend with full loads from the high-altitude aerodromes which exist on the African airway —which from Nairobi to the Cape are at altitudes of approximately 5,000 ft., or about a mile above sea level— but their reserve of power will be such that, even in tropical conditions, they will be able to continue in flight with only three engines in operation at any height up to 9,000 ft., that is to say, as much as 3,000 ft., or over half a mile, above the highest aerodrome. This high performance has not been required on the European or India air routes and has not hitherto been provided in any country in the world. The maximum speed of these new monoplane airliners will be between 140 and 150 miles an hour, while they will cruise at a speed of approximately 120 miles an hour, which will enable considerable acceleration to be effected in the time-tables of the sections between Cairo and Cape Town. It is hoped, in this regard, that the present total time schedule of 11 days between London and Cape Town will be reduced in due course to 9 days. It being the aim in civil aircraft design to combine a high cruising speed with as low as possible a landing speed, it may be noted that these new monoplanes, although able to attain, when required, a top speed of about 150 miles an hour, will, at the same time, be able to alight at less than 55 miles an hour. A feature of the new monoplanes and one designed to provide a maximum of comfort when flying under tropical conditions, is the large size of the saloons, and the amount of space provided for each passenger. Special armchair seats will be fitted of a type enabling the aerial travellers to recline at full length whenever they desire to do so. A special system of ventilation is being installed in each machine by which air is drawn in through ducts in the nose of the monoplane and then distributed through the cabin. This will mean that passengers will find it cool, high up in the air, even when they are in flight over the hottest sections of the African route. Aerial travel in these new machines will, in fact, be the most comfortable, as well as by far the most rapid, form of travel in Africa, more especially as the four engines will all be mounted out on the wings, well away from the body of the machine, thus ensuring a maximum of quietness in the passenger saloons, the walls of which will also be insulated with sound-deadening materials. These eight new British airliners, which are of light weight strip-steel construction, adopted specially for air craft use, represent, together with the necessary spare parts, a total cost of £150,000, and have been designed specially to meet the conditions, geographical and climatic, of the trans-African route which stretches for 5,500 miles from Cairo to Cape Town. " Graf Zeppelin " Still Going Strong THE German airship Graf Zeppelin, which left Pernam- buco on April 9 on the return of her second round trip this year, duly arrived back at Friedrichshafen on April 13, having encountered heavy head winds en route. The third of the series of flights—and the sixteenth voyage across the Atlantic—started on April 17, when the airship left Fried richshafen with, we believe, Sqd. Ldr. Booth—who is visiting the Zeppelin works—as one of the passengers. By Air to the Isle of Wight PREVIOUSLY known as Wight Aviation, Ltd., Ports mouth, Southsea & Isle of Wight Aviation, Ltd., now have their head office at the municipal airport, Portsmouth, with their registered office Regent Street, Shanklin (Tele phone Shanklin 76). This firm has now acquired the first metal " Wessex " (three 7-cyl. Armstrong Siddeley Genets), which accommodates eight passengers in the cabin. This machine will operate between the island and Portsmouth, as well as a week-end service direct to London. The fare between Portsmouth and Ryde will be 6s. single and 10s. return. The Ryde aerodrome is not yet usable for the " Wessex," but Mr. Hunter, of Chester, is rapidly making it so. The fare from London to Ryde will be about £2 single, while from Shanklin to Portsmouth it will be 15s. single and 27s. 6d. return. Air Mails to Persia—and Elsewhere THE Postmaster-General announces that the air ser vices from Baghdad to Tehran and from Baghdad to Shiraz, Isfahan and Tehran have been suspended. Air mail correspondence for Persia will continue to be conveyed by the England-India air mail service as far as Baghdad, Basra, Bushire, Lingeh, Jask or Karachi, the journey to other places in Persia being completed by the ordinary route. It is also announced that, as from April 18, the latest time of posting air mail correspondence in the air mail letter box outside the General Post Office, London, for France, Italy and Switzerland will be 6.45 a.m. instead of 6.0 a.m., and for Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Danzig, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Holland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russia and Sweden 7.45 a.m. instead of 6.45 a.m. The night air mail service to Cologne, Hanover and Berlin will leave an hour later than at present and the latest time of posting in the air mail letter box outside the General Post Office, London, will be 8.0 p.m. instead of 7.0 p.m. Tea Flights over London IMPERIAL AIRWAYS, on April 17, resumed their Summer Season Tea Flights over London. On each Friday and Sunday one of the 4-engined Handley Page airliners will leave Croydon at 3.45 p.m., and during the flight over London tea will be served. The cost of these trips, including motor-car transport to and from the Airway Terminus at Victoria, is now only £1 10s. per passenger. Halifax-St. John's Air Service PAN-AMERICAN AIRWAYS are reported to be planning a weekly air service between Halifax, N.S., and St. John's, Newfoundland, to start this summer. Twin-engined sea planes, carrying 20 passengers, would be used, and the journey would occupy 5 hr. London-Rotterdam at 184 m.p.h. HELPED by a following wind, one of the K.L.M. air liners flew on April 7 fiom London to Rotterdam, a distance of 230 miles, in 75 min., or at a speed of 184 m.p.h. 362
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