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Aviation History
1936
1936 - 2266.PDF
AUGUST 20, 1936. FLIGHT. 199 (OMMERCIAL — AIRLINES ———- VIATION — AIRPORTS- DIESEL GIANT : The Junkers G.38, with four Jumo IV diesel engines, gets her tail up for a tarmac take-off at Croydon. Other Flight photographs of this machine appear on page 210. THE WEEK AT CROYDON Machines for Spain ; Preparing for Civil Life : Indoor Deluge Arson QUITE a lot of good business has been done during the past week at Croydon in selling second-hand aeroplanes to one side or the other in the Spanish war. Some people speak of this legitimate business as though it were some sort of crime. Usually such folk have nothing to sell, or else cannot get into the business as agents. Some think that aeroplanes should be sold to one side only, and others say it is all right if you don't sell direct to Spain and pretend to yourself that you don't know where your old aeroplanes are going. Business is business, in my opinion, and if firms can get rid of their old stuff and replace it with up-to-date material, so much the better for airline or air-taxi efficiency. [It must not be forgotten that, although these civil machines are sold by private enterprise, the impression in Spain and elsewhere will simply be that this country as a whole is supporting one side or the other—with conse quent repercussions.—ED.] The Velox Disaster The unhappy accident to Imperial Airways' Velox has cast a gloom over the airport, for both Orr and Fergusson were universally popular. The former joined Imperials about eighteen months ago from the R.A.F., and quickly Proved himself a civil pilot of just the right calibre. He naci done a number of fine flights, chiefly on the Velox. ^ergusson had the cheery charm of the Australian. He ac considerable experience on American air lines, and had C Y b,ecome a nrst-class navigator. On the fatal flight ^ was there to take sextant readings. Because it was ]„„ a senes of experimental flights, there were two wire- scor(opefratT on board' Dear and Arbucklc- They<like hard otners at the airport, were just quiet, efficient, were 7f- mg men who §ot little or no limelight, yet who lmrnense importance in the scheme of things and upon whose shoulders heavy responsibility rested when ever flying conditions were bad. Requiescat in pace. Capt. V. G. Wilson, of Imperial Airways, left last week with a D.H. Rapide for the Iraq Petroleum pipe-line petrol. One hears very little of this highly efficient '' silent ser vice " carried on by Imperials. Mr. Woodman, an ab initio pupil of Surrey Flying Services, made his first flight one day last week as a first officer with Scylla to Brussels. Mr. Macdonald, of Surreys, informs me that his com pany has an increasing number of R.A.F. officers who spend their leave taking the necessary civil licences so as to be prepared to take a job when leaving the Service. The day has gone when R.A.F. people came breezily along to civil firms with the idea that what they had learned about one sort of flying in the Service entitled them to act as competent civil pilots straightaway. It is interesting to note, by the way, that Surreys recently had six ladv pupils, all of different nationalities, one of them Icelandic (where the depressions come from), though she, I am told, was as cheery as a cricket. Visitors to our airport often ask why there are, in the ceiling of a corridor in the main building, a series of large bored holes through which water flows in streams when it is wet—and why these holes have been there for at least six months. The answer seems to be that the roof does not keep out the rain and that the ceiling is porous. The official attitude is that it is better to bore holes in the ceiling than to mend the roof, and to hope that the floor below is waterproof. Recently, new holes, capable of directing an icy jet down the neck, have been bored in the ceiling because people have learned to dodge the larger waterspouts. Bookings on the various air lines are somewhat less intense, but a good summer average is being maintained. K.L.M. broke all outward passenger records for that com-
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