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Aviation History
1932
1932 - 0801.PDF
FLIGHT, AUGUST 12, 1932 VIEW OF STOCKHOLM FROM THE TOWER OF THE TOWN HALL. Ni skall bli nojd!* By IVOR McCLURE I HAVE just put my Carnet away in a drawer, and in doing so I found a very old one dated July 23, 1927. It expired on the following August 27. I remember that with that Carnet I went to France, Spain, Italy, Austria and Hungary. On looking inside I find each page in its virgin purity, uninscribed, unstamped and untorn. Things have changed since then. Carnets are now valid for twelve months, and they do not go far without being burdened with the elaborate seals and sig natures of the Customs authorities of the nations through which you pass. The whole procedure, though perhaps a trifle elaborate, is not a very great nuisance, but I look back with regret to the days before we had truck with the Customs. A more subtle change has come over foreign touring by air. I can remember very distinctly the excitement with which, five years ago, we made long, careful and very expensive preparations for our European flight. Many hours were spent selecting the maps on which we thought it would be best to fly. How often we were wrong in our choice! For over a fortnight we cut and gummed these together and mounted them on cards. With the aid of that wonderful publication, now extinct, the Luft- verkehrs Atlas, we plotted the position of the aerodromes and worked out our tracks and distances. We had a Mark II " Moth " without extra tanks, and we were hampered by a rather limited range. We took with us money in the currency of each nation that we proposed to visit so as to be able to pay for our petrol and oil without having to go into the town to change sterling. We carried a funnel and chamois leather and used it often. We took with us a spare can of Vacuum oil, as it was sometimes impossible to get any thing but castor on the aerodrome. In those days Vacuum was the only mineral oil that you could be certain of getting throughout Europe, and I have not yet found the smallest village where a sealed can of this product could not be obtained. The memory that now seems stranger than any is that on so many aerodromes ours was the first " Moth " to land. Nowadays it is otherwise. Few air routes have been travelled by more British aircraft than the one to Vienna and Buda-Pesth. It is embarked upon at almost a day's notice. While the Customs officer at Heston is stamping your papers you may step into the flight office next door and hire all your flying maps on which almost every con ceivable fact of importance that can affect your safety * You will be satisfied 1 or convenience is clearly marked. You can get your petrol or your oil without paying cash by using the carnets provided by the petrol companies. And you set off with the satisfactory knowledge that countless others have safely and enjoyably completed the flight before you. Some speak with regret of the good old days when Con tinental touring by air was an adventure. Adventure is a luxury that we cannot always afford, for it implies the possibility of disaster. Flying is no longer a sport, as it is so often regarded abroad, but has become a means of transport. The object of a flight is to reach a destination with the least possible tedium and delay. In making an application for a permit to fly over a certain country, I once wrote those words against the query: '' Object of Flight? " The form was returned to me. I then wrote: " Pleasure." When I landed in the country I was placed under arrest for three days. There still remains in Europe one of the pleasantest flights that it is possible to make, and which is in no way hackneyed and where the conditions savour of the good old days. If anybody wishes to try it they can do so with every prospect of enjoyment until the middle of September, when the climate is no longer at its best. I can strongly recommend it. There have been mariners' tales about the horrors of a flight to Stockholm with a land machine. With a sea plane nothing could be easier, but to fly over miles of forest and water, devoid of any but the sketchiest aero dromes at long intervals, has been held to be folly. I have just been to look for myself, and I know that the mariners' tales are fit only for the marines. The adventuresome may be disappointed during the first part of the journey, for this is over the most efficiently serviced air route in the world.1, Everyone who has landed at Schiphol, the airport of Amsterdam, knows full well the amazing courtesy and efficiency that is always to be met with there. There is the " Petrol King," 'who has always such a cheery greeting for visitors, and,' who takes your aeroplane away from you to fill it up'while you have lunch in* the aerodrome restaurant. T&e' meteorological officer can; explain in fluent English full details of the weather into which you are flying. Before you leave you have merely to collect your log-book and carnet, which were taken from you when you landed, and which have been stamped in the meantime. Your next stop is Hamburg, where you will possibly choose to spend the night. As you taxi up to the tarmac you will see one of the smart aerodrome police leave the office of the flugwache and pedal towards you on his 745
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