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Aviation History
1934
1934 - 0519.PDF
FLIGHT, MAY 24, 1934 AN AERIAL SIGNPOST : Mr. Ernest Pitman, of Bath—a pioneer of amateur flying—has had, at his own expense, the lettering " Bath " painted on the largest gas holder at' the Bath Gas Works, as shown on the right. ROME-MARSEILLES SERVICE ON May 1st a fast air service com-menced weekly operation between Rome, Marseilles and Barcelona. Con-nection is made with Air-France ser- vices to Lyons and Paris. The route isbeing operated by the S.A.M. Com- pany with triple-engined SavoiaMarchetti S.66 flying boats. GERMAN AIR MAIL RATES A NEW scale of charges for thecarriage of air mail has been published by the German Postal Administration.The air mail surtax for all European countries, with the exception of Russia,will be RM. 0.15 instead of RM. 0.20. Similar reductions are foreseen for thecarriage of air mails to other desti- nations. CROYDON /^"Jlp^HE Imperial Airways Scylla made her maiden HI 'trip to Paris last week, under the command of JIL Mr. "Jimmy" Youell. She was described in most of the newspapers as the " Flying Hotel," an exaggeration which merely leads to disappointment when people see this magnificently equipped machine. It has been thus with the reporter ever since the day ridicule was thrown on commercial aviation by the term " air liner," which was first applied by some pressman to a de Havilland 16. Scylla is the very last word in passenger comfort and spaciousness, and service of meals has been greatly facilitated. A steward told me that the gangway in which two men may pass each other with ease has the possible disadvantages in rough weather that it may be too roomy for a steward accustomed to assist his balance with the arms of the chairs in the narrower gangways. Air-France had another bit of bad luck on Saturday afternoon, when an incoming " Golden Clipper " with seven passengers made a forced landing just outside the aerodrome boundary. Nobody was hurt, and the whole thing is merely the equivalent of a railway train bumping the buffers rather hard and shaking up the passengers. What is alarming about it is that all three engines are said to have had their petrol supply cut off practically simultaneously as the machine was coming in to land. The cause of this does not seem to be clear at present, but we may rely upon it that Air-France will get to the bottom of this failure and remedy it. A word of praise is due to the pilot, M. Defives, who handled a difficult situation entrernely well. Seeing that he would be unable to clear the road, which at that point has stone-faced embankments and wooden fencing, and which, incident- ally, is seldom free from fast road traffic, he put the nose of the machine down, gathered speed and landed on the far side of the road. He then pulled the " Clipper " up and over the road in the manner of one taking a stiff fence on horseback. Unluckily, he took the top off a small tree and went through the fence on the other side of the road, but he got his machine down in the best possible way and in the safest spot—with the loss of his under- carriage. When you come to think of it quietly, it was the only thing to do. The point is that the pilot had no time to think of it quietly, but had to think and act at once. I fear I made an absurd misstatement last week about Capt. O. P. Jones' 18 miles private flying. The story reached me in the form of miles. It should be 18 hours, of course. I feel almost as ashamed as I am sure the reporter feels who asserted, after a flight in Scylla, that the commander need have no fear of a descent into the Channel, because the machine is easily convertible into a flying boat—at a moment's notice and in the air, one must suppose. The real reason has escaped the scribe—it is because of the presence of four very excellent British engines. The first D.H. 86 four-engined eight-seater aero- plane was delivered to Imperial Airways on Saturday last. The pilots are greatly impressed with its efficiency and with its cruising speed of 146 m.p.h. It will be used on the Brussels-Cologne route. Internally it is beautifully decorated and extremely comfortable. F/O. Charles Allen recently flew a photographer to the scene of the American transatlantic plane crash in County Clare, Ireland. In a " Puss Moth " he left Croydon very early in the morning and was first to arrive as well as first back at Croydon with photos. At Hahinch, the American machine was in a tiny stone wall girdled field. Allen chose the largest field near, but it was not large enough to take off again with the photographer and cameras. He flew the plates back and left the pressman who, it is understood, would not get home by surface transport under about three days. On Thursday, May 17th, a special Swedish Fokker F.XII of the A.B. Aerotransport arrived at Croydon with the Crown Princess of Sweden on board, travelling incognito as Countess Gripsholm. So fully booked up were all the K.L.M. services for the following day that the Swedish machine, of 14-seater capacity, went back as a supplementary machine on the 13.15 Scandi- navian Air Express. Capt. Crundall, of Aircraft Exchange & Mart., Ltd., was. telephoned by the owners of the ship Isle de France one day recently asking him to fly to Le Havre and pick up baggage belonging to Mrs. Edge, wife of the American Ambassador. It had been left on the quay at Le Havre and the Isle de France had left for Plymouth and New York. Capt. Crundall left Croydon 16.45 and did the trip to France and back with the luggage to Plymouth by 21.15 in time to catch the liner there before she sailed for New York. The flight Le Havre-Plymouth was over about 200 miles of water. Capt. Crundall was particu- larly impressed by the excellent Customs facilities afforded him at Croydon, Le Havre and Plymouth. A. VIATOR. 519
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