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Aviation History
1934
1934 - 1102.PDF
1104 Commercial Aviation FLIGHT. HESTON OCTOBER 18, 1934. The Boeing at Heston : Pioneering a Desert Route : By " Leopard Moth " to the Dutch East Indies : A Henlys Party : A New Charter Firm TWO MacRobertson Race competitors, Col. Roscoe Turnerand Mr. Clyde Pangborn, the first of the Americanentrants to arrive in England, landed at Heston on Octo-ber 8 in their Boeing 247-D Transport. The other member of the crew is Mr. R. Nichols, the wireless operator, who has been working on the two-way telephony and tele- graphy radio installation, which was tested in flight last Thurs- day afternoon. Two receivers are carried, one working on wavelengths of 15 to 1,500 metres, and the other on wave- lengths of 450 to 1,500 metres. When Col. Roscoe Turner, incidentally, landed after a test flight, George O'Brien, the American film star, was acting a scene on the tarmac. They are old friends who last met in California, and Col. Turner had, in fact, intended to take George O'Brien with him on the Australia race. The result of this lucky coincidence will be seen by the public in the film "The Cowboy Millionaire," to be released by the Fox Film Company at the end of the year. Mr. and Mrs. R. W. H. Knight, of Kano, Nigeria, left Heston on October 9 to fly home via France, Spain, and a new desert route which they hope one day to open up for regular traffic. This route leads almost directly south from Algiers, and has only once been flown before. On that occasion the pilot was ;a Frenchman, Capt. Wauthier, who stayed with them afterthe completion of his flight. They are flying a Blackburn "Bluebird" (Gipsy I), formerly the property of Lord Mal- colm Douglas-Hamilton. They intend to carry a small wire- less set, which is being posted out to Algiers to save weight on the earlier part of the trip. The first motor convoy of the season is scheduled to leave Algiers for Kano about October 23, and they hope to be able to follow, in the absence of land- marks, the wheel tracks in the sand. A " Fox Moth"*' left Heston for India last Thursday, piloted by Fit. Lt. Sullivan. The aeroplane is going out to join Capt. Barnard's air circus, with which it will carry out joy-riding Two passengers are travelling in the cabin, one of whom is the ice-hockey international, F/O. H. E. Mayes. The party is travelling via Rome, Cairo, and the Persian Gulf. Some curiosity was aroused on the 10th, when a red "Leopard Moth," with no registration markings whatever, landed, and its crew cleared Customs outwards. It turned out to be attached to the Portuguese Air Force, and the two officers in charge, Senhor Humberto da Cruz and Senhor Carlos Bleck, left at 11.15 a.m. for Paris on the first stage of a flight to Portugal, and then on to Timor in the Dutch East Indies. An extra petrol tank has been fitted to their machine. Henlys Ltd., whose aviation department flourishes at Heston, are organising a ball at Grosvenor House on Octo- ber 19, in connection with the Motor Show. Exhausted revellers possessed of " two-in-the-morning" courage will, at 3 a.m., transfer to a motor coach and proceed swiftly to Mildenhall Aerodrome to see the start of the MacRobertson Race at 6.30 a.m. By 11 a.m. they will be back in London bemoaning the fact that it is either too late or too early to go to bed. Capt. G. W. Ferguson, of the Airwork staff, piloted the Director of Civil Aviation, Col. F. C. Shelmerdine, to Cran- well on Thursday to attend the opening by the Prince of Wales of the new buildings. They travelled in the Avro " Commodore." A new private charter concern operating from Heston is Warden Aviation, also of Old Warden Aerodrome, Biggles- wade. The initial scheme was hatched out over a year ago by Mr. R. O. Shuttleworth, a well-known aeroplane owner with his own private landing ground at Biggleswade. One of his joy-ride passengers was Mr. A. J. Edmunds, an electrical engineer, who later learned to fly and took his pilot's " B " licence and ground engineer's " A" and "C" licences. After six months with the De Havilland Aircraft Company, and a short period as a ground engineer at Heston, he joined Mr. Shuttleworth in June, 1934. Soon afterwards the Old Warden landing ground became a licensed aerodrome, on which repair and overhaul work was handled by the two partners. Now they have launched forth on private charter and '' fly your- self" services at Heston, which (by flying and servicing their own machines) they are able to offer at very advantageous prices. These range from 30s. an hour upwards (excluding fuel) for " fly yourself," and upwards of £1 an hour, inclusive, for charter and freight services. Their present aircraft equip- ment comprises two Desoutters, two Comper "Swifts," and a Cirrus III "Moth." , Hull Has Its Troubles, Too Close on the heels of Manchester's Ringway squabbles comes the news that the Hull Corporation Aerodrome Committee is faced with a similar problem. Hedon, it seems, is considered to be inadequate for the purpose; either it must be extended and altered or an entirely new site must be provided. The cost of extending the aerodrome may be anything up to ^130,000, as a railway lies to the north and a main road to the south A Paying Air Line Mr. Nevill Vintcent, D.F.C., manager of the Tata Air Line,is now on a visit to this country, and is able to report all well with the weekly service Karachi-Bombay-Madras. Though theservice is unsubsidised it is now showing a profit, and the weekly loads of mails are growing too big for the capacity ofthe " Puss Moth " with which the line is operated. Mr. Vint- cent is on the look-out for a type which has greater capacityand which will be suitable in other respects. He has no objec- tion to wooden construction, lt may not last quite so longas metal will do, but then, he says, a wooden machine will probably last until the weekly weight of mails has outgrownits capacity and the line h^s to seek a still more capacious machine. The policy of the firm is unchanged in preferring mails topassengers as cargo As for the projected Bombay-Calcutta daily service, whichH.E. the Viceroy recently said he hoped to see soon in operation, nothing can be said except that negotiationsbetween the firm and the Government of India are still pro- ceeding. It was gratifying to hear the high opinion expressedby Mr. Vintcent of Capt. Tymms as Director of Civil Aviation in-India, even though it is'sometimes the duty (and probablythe unpleasant duty) of the D.C.A. to turn down proposals put up by the enterprising firm of Tata Sons, Ltd. By Air to Lundy Island A regular service will be operated next summer from Barn- staple aerodrome to Lundy Island. This is likely to be quite a popular line, as, in bad weather, the steamers sometimes wait outside '' Lundy for long periods, and the trip by air, in any case, should take little more than a quartei of an hour. Actually, during the past month a Monospar flown by Messrs. Boyd and Nash, of the Barnstaple club, has carried 48 passengers to the island in experimental flights. The landing ground in Lundy is privately owned, and com- mercial machines are not permitted to land, but all private owners are welcome. It is being enlarged, and at present there is a run in all directions of some 400 yards, but owners are advised to obtain information about the peculiarities of both wind and ground before making the passage. Such information is available at all times at Barnstaple Aerodrome. Air France's Winter Arrangements Several changes are noticeable in Air France's time-table for winter operations. The Morocco section is now operated twice a week in each direction by the three-engined Breguet 393 T. recently illustrated in Flight. This machine doec not stop at Rabat, but ground transport is provided from Casa- blanca. There is a daily service between Marseilles, Barce- lona, Tangiers and Casablanca, though the outward machine does not land at Tangiers on Sunday. As forecast some time ago, the week-day London-Cannes service is now operated exclusively by three-engined machines—Wibault-Penhoets and Fokkers. " A daily service is run between Le Bourget, Strasburg and Vienna, with three weekly connections to and from Warsaw and Bucarest. No alterations have been made in the Far East or South American routes.
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