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Aviation History
1936
1936 - 1228.PDF
MAY 14, 193^- FLIGHT. 507 Commercial Aviation passenger lists; readjust the weights on the load list, and get the whole lot initialled by Customs ; tp weigh the pas senger and his baggage, get his passport examined, and, if an alien, to get him to fill in an alien's card covered with disconcerting questions about his sex, number of dependents, and the shape of his ears (most of these details must be completed in block letters), would have delayed the machine a further five to eight minutes. Here you have a passenger seriously contending that some fifteen to thirty other travellers ought to be held up for a total of perhaps a quarter of an hour because he does not trouble to turn up in time. A delay of that sort may, for the other passengers, easily mean the missing of vital air con nections in Paris or Amsterdam. This unreasonable and selfish behaviour could be stopped if it were widely advertised that, five minutes before the scheduled departure time, the barrier would be put up. New Equipment for Sabena ON Saturday afternoon Croydon saw the arrival of a very new and shiny Junkers Ju.52 with Belgian registration letters. This was one of two which have recently been pur chased by Sabena, their registration letters being OO-AGU and OO-AGV. Gatwick in Action ON and after May 17, British Airways' Continental services will operate from Gatwick airport, and the time-tables have been modified in each direction in order to connect with the "semi-fast" Southern Railway electric trains to Vic toria. The fares will, of course, include first-class rail travel and tickets will be available also from London Bridge and the intermediate stations as well as from Brighton. Wrightways at Work QUITE apart from the Paris newspaper service and general charter work, Wrightways of Croydon have been given some useful overhaul work during the past few weeks, and their hangar looks more like an aircraft works than ever. A few days ago there could be seen a D.H. Rapide, pre viously owned by Hillman's Airways and now owned, of course, by British Airways (for C. of A. and engine "com pletes "), a Puss Moth owned by Brian Lewis and Co. (C. of A. just completed) and a Leopard which was in the act of being rebuilt after a crash. Automaticity at Croydon THE demonstration two-axes P.B. automatic pilot is now back in Mr. Philip Bailev's Puss Moth—complete with dashboard controls which certainly were not there before. These consist of a "rate of turn" control, in the form of a milled knob, and four press-buttons by which the pilot pre- cesses the gyres in order to change course or altitude. One or other is held down until the change has been effected. The P.B. pilot, incidentally, which was previously being tried out in one of Wrightway's Dragons, has now gone to Reading— presumably for test in the Miles Peregrine, though the two-axes pilot is almost light enough to be a justifiable fitting in a smaller'machine which is being used for long-distance charter work. - The Holiday Market ON July 11 Olley Air Service will start their seasonal opera tions between Croydon and Deauville. This service, on which D.H. Rapides will be used, will be run three, times in- each direction, on Fridav, Saturday and Monday, and once on the other days of the week. Meanwhile, Brighton is likely to be more firmly on. the air map this year, and in due course the same company will fly thence to Dieppe and Ryde. Despite considerable competition, the traffic carried by Blackpool and West Coast Air Services continues to be satis factory. This company was, of course, the pioneer over the isle of Man route and has, by regular and safe operation, made a very useful name which should balance, to some extent, ™e relative shortage of booking facilities. In the north there are, or will shortly be, four D.H. Dragons, two Fox Moths and three D.H. 86s. in service. The latter, of course, is the rargest type on any I.O.M. route. The new K.L.M. night service between Amsterdam and Cologne, though primarily a mail service, also carries pas sengers. Leaving London at 6.25 p.m., and Croydon at 7.45 p.m., a connection can be obtained which lands you at Cologne half an hour after midnight. Leaving Cologne at 3.15 a.m., you reach Amsterdam at 5.5 a.m., and link up with the 7.30 a.m. departure for London, reaching Croydon at about breakfast time. The trouble about these night services, of course, is the de pressing effect of turning out at ghastly hours of the morn ing at cold, wind-swept aerodromes: The Imperial pilot who recently landed at Munchen Gladbach with a broken petrol pipe, did not affect Aber- donian economy to the extent of merely wiring his head quarters: "Gladbach on ground," though he must have been, considering the amount of fog about. A. VIATOR. New Zealand's "Gapan" THE first meeting of the N.Z. Air Pilots' Guild was held at Blenheim on February 29. Sub-committees were set • up to investigate and report on the possibility of blind-flying instruction being made available to members; to inquire into the possibility of securing concessions in the matter of navi gation instruction; and to obtain and verify details of the air experience of all members. Radio in East Africa REPRESENTATIVES from the Air Ministry and the Marconi Company have recently visited Mombasa in order to dis- [ cuss the site for a radio station. This is to be installed in pre paration for the commencement, next year, of the Imperial Airways' flying-boat service down the East African coast. In addition to this station, which will have D/F facilities on medium and short wavelengths, Mombasa is to have a meteorological bureau. Dar-es-Salaam has also been visited ior the same purposes. I Another Big Machine AT the works of Marcel Bloch a new four-engined transport machine known as the 160 is now nearing completion, the fuselage and wings having been finished. The forerunner of this machine is the Marcel Bloch 130, or " Pacifique," which is fitted with three Gnome Rhone K 14s. The new machine is > destined for Air France's Far Eastern service to Indo-China, and will carry sixteen passengers by night and twenty-four passengers by day. Its top speed is estimated at 230-240 m.p.h., with a cruising speed of 207 m.p.h. Air France have now definitely decided, as a basis of future policy, to build four-engined aircraft for their principal lines. 1 A contributory factor has been the experience gained by the company in operating four-engined flying boats on the South 1 Atlantic and Mediterranean routes, and also the success of the four-engined Farman landplane, Centaure, which now has t\v<> sister ships in service with Air France. As has already been . stated in Flight, a fleet of six four-engined Farman forty- seaters of the Centaure type are to replace all existing French aircraft on the London-Marseilles route by this time next year. 5 . . ' 1 Another Airport for London r L AST week (on May 7), by a comparatively small majority, the Corporation of the City of London decided to con struct an airport at Falrlop, near Uford, Essex, at an estimated cost of .£600,000. A motion was put down as long ago as December, 1933, 1 by Mr. F. A. Horner, and a resolution was passed to consider 1. the project. One of the proposals mentioned by Mr. Hornei 1 was the erection of a platform over the Thames between a Southwark and Blackfriars bridges. e The Committee then turned its attention to normal sites, and after a considerable number of surveys they found one at j Fairlop, Essex, about ten miles from the Mansion House and abutting on the London-Southend arterial road. The site e comprises 940 acres and the expense of laying out the airport is expected to be charged to the general rate in view of the statutory power under the Air Navigation Act, 1920. The e Rates Finance. Committee were, by a majority, against the s proposal so to charge the cost, and it was suggested that the e City's Cash should bear the burden, and the debate centred itself round that issue.
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