FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1934
1934 - 1108.PDF
FLIGHT. October 2s. 1934 ZERO HOUR : The crowd watches the competitors line up. In the foreground is the unlucky Mollisons'" Comet," and behind it Col. Roscoe Turner's Boeing. (Below). TOEING THE LINE : Another view over the heads of the crowd. The nearest machine is the " PussMoth " flown by Mr. C. J. Melrose, next to it are the Airspeed " Courier " A.S.5. (Sqd. Ldr. Stodart and Mr. K. G. Stodart), and Fit. Lt. Shaw's British Klemm » Eagle." These machines were in the Handicap Race. NEVER, in the whole history of aviation, has therebeen such a vitally impressive hour as that preced-ing the bewitched moment on October 20, 1934. when the familiar little Union Jack was dropped for the first machine off in the England-Australia race. Many great flights have begun at dawn, and thousands—nay, millions—of people have waited for the first light, their mouths dry with excitement. Imaginations had been fired. The roads for mile 3 around the little village of Mildenhall were choked with motorists, cyclists, and walkers who had struggled out ot bed at four o'clock or who had never been to bed at all. Cars were driven recklessly into ditches while the occu- pants prepared to walk across ploughland to the bright hangar lights which could be seen in the distance. Yet, to be entirely matter-of-fact, there was little or nothing to be seen but a score of heavily loaded aeroplanes droning out of the aerodrome and turning gingerly towards the dawn on the first leg of a long trip. The scenes and sounds on the tarmac an hour before the start were entirely unforgettable. Hundreds and hun- dreds of people walked or ran in the dim light. Beside the floodlit south hangar the big Boeing Trans- port gleamed dully, while mechanics crawled, climbed and were given orders. One of the metal airscrews moved fractionally, stopped, moved again, and suddenly became a glistening disc while foot-long jets of orange flame played from the exhausts and the hangar reverberated. Yet above the clamour could be heard the monotoiK- from one loud speaker and the faint echo from another on the apron. " Clouds at three thousand feet ; visibility two miles; wind two sixty- two degrees, twenty-eight miles an hour . . ." and so on, with weather reports from all the principal aero dromes on the first section of the course. In the hangar itself the Douglas D.C.2 was slowly being moved, and the Pan- derjager was already on the tarmac. • Presently, against a back- ground of a dawn fit for the occasion—layer upon layer of jagged orange clouds climbing into starlit purple—the Doug- las and the Pander were being taxied along the front of the aerodrome enclosure. A flutter of handkerchiefs from the cabia windows and an answering wave from the crowd. Probably more effective
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
