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Aviation History
1934
1934 - 0746.PDF
74« 't^LIGHT. JULY 19, 1934. COMMERCIAL AIRLINES XTATION = AIRPORTS— CROYDON Some Olley Charters : Air Services Run to Time Nowadays : Telephony versus Telegraphy The First D.H. 86 : Aircraft Noise : To Liverpool via Amsterdam PEOPLE sometimes expect thrills in these notes justbecause they deal with aviation, whereas nothing is lessthrilling than air travel to-day. Machine after machine, fully loaded with passengers, departs or arrives with monotonous regularity. It is difficult enough to find incidents, let alone thrills. ' he most varied experiences fall to the lot of those who do not cater for regular air travel. Olley Air Service, Ltd., for example, has catered for the many different kinds oi flying recently. A flight from Croydon to Baden-Baden, for instance, with a couple oi hours there whilst a client lunched and talked business. The whole journey was covered between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. A Smithfield butcher gave his staff of ten their annual outing, and Olley Air Services flew the party round by Chat- ham, Dover, Brighton, Cowes—for bathing and lunch—Salis- bury, Guildford, and so home to Croydon. Another trip was from Newmarket to Carlisle for the races, with a peer who rode in a race and then flew back. There was an American party, too, determined to see Land's End. They were picked up from their ship at Plymouth, flown around Devon and Cornwall, and then, via Barnstaple and Bristol, brought along to Croydon. They- are, incidentally, starting on a trip round Europe next week with the same charter company. Two incidents last week show that air transport has definitely reached the strict timetable stage. Princess Payley from Elstree flew to Croydon in a light aeroplane to catch the 6.30 p.m. Imperial for Paris. Still in the air when the half- hour struck, she saw the big machine move slowly away from the tarmac. Another film ftar, " Buster "' Keaton, arrived a minute too late for the Imperial Airways 9.30 a.m. depar- ture for Paris on Friday. He waited philosophically until the 12.30 p.m. departure In the bad old days photographic agencies despatching Press photos abroad were the worst people for holding up aircraft departures. The various com- panies eventually agreed to wait for them as long as they liked —at £1 per minute. That effectually prevented the despatch rider from arriving at the actual departure time. So heavy is the traffic to Cologne—formerly a very poor line —this summer that Scylla seems to have been placed more or less permanently on that route. Week-end passengers to Le Touquet are evidently more dressy than most. The other day six passengers by Olley Air Service occupied one " Diagon," whilst another, with twenty- four pieces of theii baggage, followed them. Some of the old air line pilots tell me that the air is be- coming very congested in these days. Both Provincial Air- lines and Wrightson and Pearse run earfy morning newspaper services to Paris, and Hillmaii activities, too, have to be taken into account The newcomers all use wireless—wisely, of course, but not always too well. Hence the fact that it is becoming increasingly difficult to deal with all the traffic in the air at one time when weather conditions make almost con- tinuous communication between machine and ground station essential. The answer seems to be the abolition of telephony. Those who have abolished it swear by telegraphy. Those who have not, cling firmly to the new-old method. It is useless to argue, but the Germans used telegraphy all along, and now nothing would induce the Dutch pilots to go back to telephony. Verb. sap. On Friday last Capt. Wilcockson flew the first D.H.86 to Paris. The only fault found with this type is, apparently, a tendency to bounce over rough surfaces, a matter easy enough to put right. The English are a curious race. Various companies here are continually receiving complaints about the noise of aero- planes from people who live close to the aerodrome. Prob- ably Imperial Airways, Ltd., get fewest, for their four-t-ngined machines are quiet enough. However, foreigners cannot under- stand these complaints. People abroad who deliberately live next door to an airport expect noise. Actually, Nature —human nature at any rate—abhors a novelty. There was the same outcry about trains and motor cars, and the com- plaints ceased as soon as people became accustomed to them. It is the novelty of noise from a new quarter that worries people, and not simply noise alone, and this fact was quite unconsciously illustrated by a letter recently published in a leading newspaper. "Sitting in a garden, we quite realise that the noise of traffic on the road must be patiently endured, but now that aeroplanes are flying so much lower . . . ." Why must road traffic noise be endured patiently and air traffic noise impa- tiently ? The traffic of the air is surely as vitally important. Incidentally, aeroplanes are flying higher now, but their size causes people in gardens to imagine that they brush the tree tops. " Air France " are to be congratulated on the smart appear- ance of the passenger cars with the house flag flying on the wing, and on the neat grey uniform of the drivers under their smart dust coats. The K.L.M. Manager at Croydon, under whose charge the Hull and Liverpool services come, tells me that the quickest way to reach those northern stations from Croydon is by air to Amsterdam, to connect with the Liverpool service. He can leave Croydon at 9 a.m., have a couple of hours in Amsterdam, and reach Hull at 3.30 or Liverpool at 4.40 p.m. " Timber " Woods, of Surrey Flying Services, Ltd., lei( Croydon one morning last week to help the Leicester police to catch a " mock " motor bandit, using wireless between the aeroplane and police cars on the road. In this particular case the car had a white roof. " Timber" says that once you have spotted the car from the air (and this is the catch!) there is absolutely no escape for the banditti. Finally, the chase ended when police cars drew across the road in front of the " bandits." The sustained and indignant hooting of the other traffic held up, was perfectly reproduced through the wireless headphones in the aeroplane some thousands of feet up. A. VIATOR. IN AMERICA A LTHOUGH several new and important types have appeared A on the American air routes since the table, reproduced on the opposite page, was compiled by the Air Ministry, it will be found, nevertheless, to be interesting. A number of machines owned by the U.S. transport companies are registered, too, in foreign countries, so the table is incomplete. Large orders for such machines as the Douglas "Airliner" and the Lockheed " Electra " will since have tended to give the "machine" column a rather more uniform appearance. but, in January of this year, when the information was obtained, the types operated by the separate countries appear to be as diverse as possible. It is worth noting that the average commercial payload works out at 2.31b. per h.p., the average cruising speed at 131 m.p.h. —high, but not as high as most people imagine—and the average h.p. per machine at 719. Pan-American Airways Inc. owned no fewer than 194 machines, 121 of which were either amphibians or flying boats.
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