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Aviation History
1934
1934 - 1323.PDF
DECEMBER 13, 1934. FLIGHT. 1327 THE GATEWAY h Me EAST Part II — From Rome to Sirte: The Air Journey to Baghdad Continued By C. N. COLSON. OUR next stage led us down the coastto Rome—a flight which is interest-ing, as it passes Elba and other places known to us from history, but wherever possible we cut across the bays to save time, and so were frequently almost out of sight of the land. The wind blowing off the coastal mountains made it very bumpy indeed, and, there- fore, quite a tiring trip; but Bear was already becoming acclimatised, and I believe he did not feel any ill-effects dur- ing the whole of the rest of the journey— which shows how quickly people get used to flying. At Rome we landed at the Littorio aerodrome, situated north of the city in a bend of the River Tiber. It is well made, and, although not very large, was of ample size for us. From its position it would appear liable to flooding, and this seemed to have been anticipated by building the hangar about twenty- feet above the aerodrome, on concrete piles. This is rather exciting at first, as you have to taxi up a concrete ramp to the entrance, but the usual large gang of men seemed quite used to it and held on to the wings in the right places without doing any damage. Try as we might, we could not hurry the many officials who wanted to examine, at great length, our log book, carnet de passage en douane, certificate of airworthiness, and so on. No one in Italy seems to believe that anyone who is flying can possibly be in a hurry. They assume that you must be having a holiday, and that a day more or less does not matter at all. Another source of delay here was the fact that the fuel supplied by the aerodrome pumps is Stanavo, whereas we, as I mentioned last week, carried a carnet for Shell. The latter fuel is obtain- able, but in a much less convenient manner than usual; you have to tele- phone to Rome and have your Shell brought all the way out by lorry, and the day we wanted it the lorry went and ran a bearing, or something equally annoying. However, the fuel came at last and was put in very quickly, but, nevertheless, nearly two hours had gone by the time we took off and were on our way over that ancient city, which looks so new in places because many of the historic buildings have been opened up under the Mussolini regime. He has had numberless small hovels and decrepit houses cleared away, and a visitor to Rome who has not been there for ten years would not recognise certain parts of the city, but he would agree that it was improved. The coast south of Rome is flat and uninteresting, and when we reached the Gulf of Gaeta we cut straight across it to Naples. We had to land there because our range wonld not allow us to go direct from Rome to Catania, which was to be our night stop if we could possibly make it. There are several aerodromes all down the " instep " of Italy south of Naples which could be used in emer- J. K. Morton, the " Dragon's " pilot, satisfying the Egyptian customsofficials at Mersa Matruh. gency, but they are not supposed to be used by ordinarytourists. Naples aerodrome, which lies north of the city, is neither large nor has it good approaches. High trees surround it and the surface is rough. As luck would have it, we had to land and take-off across the narrow width, but we did so without undue trouble. Once again we found the rigmarole which had to be gone through with the log book, and so forth, very tedious, and, as at the other Italian aerodromes, although we were neither leaving nor coming into Italian territory, all our passports had to be examined minutely • and the seals on our cameras scrutinised to see that we had not been tampering with them! One point which is bad about the Italian aerodromes—and which gener- ally applies, but to a lesser extent, to most foreign aerodromes—is that the wind direction indicator is difficult to see. They have an attenuated wind stocking with narrow red and white bands, which make it look far too like the surrounding house-tops. There is also a large wooden arrow placed hori- zontally on the ground, but the designer has been parsi- monious with the dimensions of the barbs, so that, at times, it is quite difficult to see which is the head and which is the tail. At Naples we first began to feel the advantage of Mr. Mackinnon's connection with Lloyd's—he being an under- writer of that august body—as the Lloyd's agent very kindly met us and assisted materially in getting us through the paper-signing business quickly. His help did not, however, completely overcome the fatherly attitude adopted towards all pilots flying through Italy. They are never allowed to go without endless trouble unless the weather report shows that a clear sky without a trace of wind is the general condition. When we wanted to leave, the report showed a considerable and gusty wind, and there were also a few clouds about. It wasn't bad weather, from an English pilot's point of view ; in fact, comparing it with the sort of weather to This is the second instalment of an article by Lieut.-Com. Colson, R.N., describing the recent journey which he made on behalf of " Flight " to in- vestigate the conditions that the ordinary pilot is likely to encounter on a long-distance flight of this description.
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