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Aviation History
1933
1933 - 0969.PDF
FLIGHT, NOVEMBER 9, 1933 CROYDON /^"fij-'HE fast D.L.H. machine JU.52, which is now on V HI the night mail service regularly, recently broke III the London-Cologne commercial speed record when the 320 miles were flown in 1 hr. 50 min., with pilot Falke at the controls. The very next day the same machine lowered the record again with a time of ] hr. 48 min. In the first case the average speed for the flight was 174 m.p.h., and for the second day the calcu lation is an easy one. On Thursday last Herr Kummol, of the German company, completed his millionth kilometre when he landed at the Airport of London. This means some 6,000 hours in the air. Herr Kummol, who is well known at the London Airport, has been 22 years a pilot, and ever since D.L.H. commenced operations he has been on the London route. The other day a small boy of about nine or ten years of age, in a school cap, invaded the airport with a photo graph of a " Heracles," on which he insisted on obtaining the signature of everybody in uniform he encountered. In this way he accumulated signatures of pilots of all nations, several stewards, a sprinkling of junior freight clerks, and, it is said, the hotel hall porter and a passing R.A.F. officer. People are too accustomed to the ease and regularity with which they can reach places two or three hundred miles away in a couple of hours or so to show any enthu siasm for normal air travel. Every now and then, how ever, some incident of an unusual nature underlines the outstanding advantages of flying. Take the following flight, for example. It broke no records and there was nothing especially outstanding about it—but it rang the bell. Last Wednesday a man missed the 11 a.m. boat train from Victoria Station to the South of France. He then did what a wiser man might have done at first. He dropped in at the Imperial Airways office on the station and placed himself in the company's capable hands. By 12.30 p.m. he was in the air piloted by Mr. Gordon P. Olley, and he arrived via St. Inglevert Aerodrome at Calais before 1.30 p.m. At St. Inglevert Aerodrome a motor-car was awaiting him. He was puzzled by this for the moment, but afterwards found out that it had been ordered by his pilot by wireless from the air. This passen ger was thus enabled to keep a business appointment of the utmost importance. He had one grouse, however. At Calais he had to wait nearly an hour for the train he had missed at Victoria to link up with the train which was to take him farther. His feeling of superiority over the already jaded passengers from London can well be imagined when, eventually, he saw them arrive. Three important shipping representatives, Sir G. McLaren-Brown, Canadian-Pacific ; Mr. A. B. Cauty, White Star ; and Mr. S. J. Lister, Cunard, met on neutral ground when they embarked together by Imperial Airways, Ltd., for Paris, one day during the week. They were to attend a conference of various interested companies of different nationalities on the North Atlantic route, the object being to stabilise fares and rates on that route. The Royal Dutch Air Lines, by no means one of the least progressive air companies, has recently taken a medical officer, Dr. Slotboom, into the company's service. He arrived at the London Airport a few days ago, where he had an interview with Dr. Draper, of the London Airport. There can be no doubt that in many matters connected with commercial aviation, especially in questions concerning Far Eastern routes, expert medical assistance and advice may be of incalculable value to an air traffic company. Mr. H. Shaw, Air Representative, Shell Head Office, who left Croydon on October 23, is keeping schedule comfort ably. I understand, in spite of misleading weather reports, a 15-m.p.h. tail wind turned out to be a 25-m.p.h. head wind on the way to Tunis, causing him to make a highly successful night landing at that place by the light of the Shell representative's car headlights. Mr. Shaw was at Tunis on October 23, at Cairo on November 1 and reached Baghdad on November 5. On Saturday, November 4, Imperial Airways, Ltd., were obliged to duplicate the midday service to Paris from here. Both machines were fully loaded. Time was when it was a matter for high jubilation when one small aeroplane could be placarded " full up " in the month of November. A. VIATOR. FROM HESTON ON Thursday, November 2, the two " Dragons " which Indian National Airways have purchased through Airwork, Ltd., of Heston, left for India. . Viscount Ratendone, the only son of the Earl of Willingdon, the Viceroy of India, is travelling on one of them to join his father. The machines, piloted by Fit. Lt. C. E. F. Arthur and F/O. A. G. M. Cary, are travelling via Marseilles, Rome, Tunis, Cairo, Baghdad, Bushire and Karachi to Calcutta. One is fitted with wire less, which may be transferred to the other in a few minutes. They will operate between Calcutta and Ran goon, and between Calcutta and Dacca. Capt. G. W. Ferguson, navigational instructor at Heston, carries out all ground tuition with a dummy " cockpit " fitted with stick, rudder-bar and compass, and special dummy instruments manufactured by Smiths' Air craft Instruments, Ltd., the pointers of which are con trolled by the instructor. " Turning error " is imparted to the compass by an electro-magnet operated by a lever out of sight of the pupil. Having worked out his course on a table, the pupil climbs into the cockpit and " takes off." Setting the verge-ring of his compass, he turns on to his course, the instructor swivelling him round with one hand and imparting the correct turning error with the other. Then the map is studied, while the instructor, working the pointers of the instruments, supplies all the little distractions which bother the beginner on his first cross-country flight. All this instruction is given free of charge in proportion to the actual flying done. A pupil going solo in the average 7 hours has already had 3£ hours' ground navigation instruction. October showed an increase in school hours of 129 per cent, on October last year, despite the low clouds and high winds which predominated. In the first four days of November the hours recorded are over half the total hours for the whole of November, 1932. S S S S Up and Up and Up SOME indication of the conditions with which pilots have to contend is given by the details of flight in an Imperial Airways Atalanta (four A.S. " Serval " en gines) in South Africa. A machine of this type was flying not long ago in the region of the Hex River Mountains, where vertical air currents of large magnitude are known to exist. Usually these take the form of very severe gusts, which can stress the aircraft structure heavily and, there fore, call for careful handling on the part of the pilot. On this occasion, however, something quite different hap pened. The machine was flying along comfortably when the pilot found himself climbing rapidly. He throttled back the engines and put the nose well down, but still she went up, not at such a rate that the passengers were in anyway inconvenienced, but, nevertheless, up! In a very short time the machine, which was flying at an altitude of 4,000 ft., was up to 14,800 ft., and it was not until this figure was reached that the pilot was able to come down without diving at an abnormally steep angle. nid
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