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Aviation History
1934
1934 - 1385.PDF
DECEMBER 27, 1934. FLIGHT. 1380 Commercial Aviation HESTON A D.H.%9 for Persia : An Aid to Blind Take-offs ANEW D.H.89 left Heston 011 the morning of December 19for operation by Airwork, Ltd., in Persia, on behalf ofthe Anglo-Persian Oil Co. Mr. J. J. Parkes, Technical Manager of Airwork, is flying it out, and Lyons is tobe their first halt. Among the passengers is Mrs. Parkes. Prince Omar Halim, a flying pupil of Airwork's associatedEgyptian company, hopes to leave Heston before Christmas on a flight to Egypt. He has purchased a Miles "HawkMajor," and he is looking forward to the pleasure of out- distancing Egypt's other civil aeroplanes. Heston has installed a simple aid to those machines whoseblind-flying instruments do not register until the aeroplane has attained flying speed. To assist the pilot in a fog take-off, awhite dotted line has been painted across the aerodrome on a compass bearing of 85 deg., or almost exactly East and West. This line is bisected by a double cross-line twenty feet long,and a single white cross-line marks each quarter of the total distance of 805 yards. If there is sufficient visibility to watchthe ground at all, the pilot can check his direction and the distance he has travelled on the aerodrome by watching thisline as he takes off parallel to it. Ten cubic yards of chalk were used in making the line, andthe method adopted, after a preliminary theodolite survey, was for two parties to start excavating at opposite ends of theaerodrome. Their ancestors must have been ploughmen, for they were only i£ inches out when they met in the middle. Viscount Furness has purchased, from Brian Lewis and Co.,Ltd., a luxuriously fitted D.H.89 to replace the D.H. Dragon'' which lie previously owned and which is now oncharter to Mr. Whitney Straight, the racing motorist. The K.L.M. Tragedy After being missing for nearly twenty-four hours, the burnt-out wreckage of the K.L.M. Douglas, which was carrying the Christmas mail to Batavia, was found ten miles south of Rut-bah Wells. There were three passengers and a crew of four on board. At the time of the accident the weather was so verybad that neither Imperial Airways nor the K.A.F. were flying. The commander, Beekman, had had a long experience overthe route. Too much praise cannot be given to the Air Ministry andthe R.A.F., who placed everything at the disposal of K.L.M., and the wreck was located by Number 14 Bomber Squadronstationed at Amman, whence, surgeons were carried to tin; scene. The Company's superintendent flew over in anImperial Airways machine. Meanwhile, in Europe, Geysendorffer and Sillevus left forAmman in an F.12 with Netherlands Air Ministry and technical officials on board. Certainly K.L.M. intend to doeverything possible to clear up the cause of this tragedy. Duplication of Empire Services Air mail users are reminded that, as slated in Flight of November 29, the services from London to Johannesburg will, from Sunday, December 30, depart on each Sunday and Wed- nesday ; those to Calcutta leave on Tuesdays and Saturdays, the first leaving on January 1. Aviation and Commerce As a result of the deputation from the London Chamber of Commerce, the Association of British Chambers of Commerce and the Federation of British Industries, which was received last June by the Postmaster-General, a committee, on which all three bodies are represented, has just been formed, and held its first meeting on Wednesday of last week. It is to be known as the Commercial Aviation Committee, and will be composed of four representatives from each body. The chairmanship is to be an annual appointment to be held in turn by a representative of each body. The first chair- man is Sir Stephen Demetriadi, President of the London Chamber of Commerce, and the secretary is Mr. S. Henderson, The London Chamber of Commerce, 69-73, Cannon Street, E.C.4. At the annual meeting of the Civil Aviation Section of the London Chamber of Commerce on December 5, Mr. Ivor McClure was elected chairman of the section for the year 1934-35 in succession to Major H. Hemming, A.F.C., whilst the Viscount Ratendone and Mr. Nigel Norman were appointed deputy chairmen. Tata Air Mail Service The Tata air mail service has, during the second year of operations, achieved 100 per cent- regularity; the service did not miss a single connection with Imperial Airways. Dur- ing the year 16.57 t°ns 0I ma^ were carried, as compared with the 10.48 tons carried last year. Although the service is for mail, passengers are carried on request, and during the past year a number of persons travelled by the line. There is an increasing demand, says the Com- pany's report, for passages from Bombay to Karachi, but owing to very heavy mail loads in this particular direction they have been unable to offer accommodation to many pro- spective passengers. However, in the not distant future, they hope to re-equip the service with bigger machines, when it will be possible for Tatas lo develop a regular passenger servicebetween Karachi and Bombay. Uninterrupted regularity is all the more praiseworthy, con-sidering the bad weather conditions during the monsoon, the lack of wireless facilities and of emergency landing grounds,and the modest organisation am! equipment with which the service is equipped. New Alaskan Service Early next year a 675-mile experimental extension will be made in Pacific Alaska Airways routes. A trial service will l>e flown from Fairbanks to Whitehorse and Juneau, where a con- nection will be made with the Alaska Steamship Company. Lockheed " Elcctras" will probably be used. Provincial Airways' Neu> Venture As foreshadowed in the Croydon news of December 6, Pro- vincial Airways propose to inaugurate, on March 1, a service between Hull, Nottingham, Leicester, Southampton, and the Isle of Wight, leaving Hull daily at 8.30 a.m. and the I.o.W. at 5 p.m. The company hones to carry mails on this route. Hillman's Aintays, Ltd. The prospectus of Hillman's Airways, Ltd., the new com- pany to which we referred the other week, was issued on December 18. As previously stated, this company has been formed to acquire the business of Edward Henry Hillman, Ltd. (formerly Hillman's Airways, Ltd.), with a capital of ^150,000 in 600,000 Ordinary shares of 5s. each, the vendor company receiving as the whole of their purchase considera- tion 120,000 fully-paid shares. Besides maintaining and im- proving the existing operations of the original company, the following developments and extensions are contemplated; New services between Essex Airport, Osteml and Brussels, Essex Airport and Dieppe; and Essex Airport and Cherbourg; in- creased services to Paris; development of the freight-carrying and charter sides of the bufiness. Qraf Zeppelin's 621,370 Miles On her return to Friedrichshafen the Graf Zeppelin achieved her millionth kilometre. Eighteen members of the crew have flown with her over this distance during six years of operation. According to the statistics of the Hamburg-America Line, who manage the passenger and freight business for the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin, 423 flights were carried out, of which about 90 were crossings over the ocean. The airship was in the air for 9,815 hours, carried 27,700 passengers, over 54 million letters, and 92,594 lb. of cargo, without a single mishap. The original 72 hours scheduled for the Friedrichshafen to Pernambuco run was often considerably reduced. The growing confidence in airship travel is shown by the increase in passengers carried. During 1932 only four paying passengers were carried on an average per flight; during 1933 this was increased to nine passengers, but this year the available accommodation for twenty passengers proved to be insufficient on most of her voyages. The fares have also been considerably reduced. Flights to South America will probably be resumed at the end of March, 1933, and the new airship, L.Z.T29, will probably make a few trips to North America during the late summer. The flights across the North Atlantic will take about two-and- a-half days, and the fares will be from £80 to £90.
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