FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1937
1937 - 0273.PDF
JANUARY 28, 1937. FLIGHT. 105 COMMERCIAL /AWIATION — AIRLINES _—_____ AIRPORTS- THE LATEST EXPRESS : This view of the new D.H. 86B clearly shows the details of the new tail unit which has been designed to improve the handling qualities, particularly on full load. Improvements have also been made to the undercarriage. This particular 86B was about to be delivered to Blackpool and West Coast Air Services. (Flight photograph.) THE WEEK AT CROYDON The Oxted Accident : Flotsam : False Alarm : Results of Cogitation hour, rousing all sorts of poor fellows over an enormous area. Another notable event also occurred on that day. The good ship Heracles, commanded by Capt. Rogers, shook everyone to the boot heels by making the Le Bourget- Croydon trip in 1 hour 28 minutes, whereas an Air France Wibault took 1 hour 31 minutes. It was either a case of a built-in tail wind or of steering such an exact course as to cut off all superfluous corners. Meanwhile, pilots going the other way in not-so-fast machines sat happily aloft for hours, glowing with thoughts of the flying pay they were earning. Capt. (Buddy) Messenger has returned to Croydon for a time. He is one of those splendid folk who started as a mechanic and is now an Imperial Captain. He was in command of Hanno when the machine was down in the desert for a couple of days or so and earned golden opinions from his passengers for the way in which he looked after them. He is taking the flying-boat course whilst in Europe end is flying as supernumary on Scylla and Syrinx, which are not yet on his ticket. One wonders if he will be flying for a time on European routes to relieve one of the old hands, who find precious little time to devote to swotting for a first-class navigation ticket and who cannot easily be spared to do the flying-boat course. Fast Travelling A couple of K.L.M. passengers stepped off the beat from New York last week at about 12.30 p.m. at South ampton and reached London 4 p.m. They left Croydon at 6 p.m. for Amsterdam and left there again the same night, or very early in the morning, for Jodhpur, which they reached on the fourth day out. About the Maybury Committee and its findings—which broke on a dazed world (which had breathlessly awaited something epoch-making after all that brooding) with about as much effect as a bomb full of feathers—I see that the- bright green aeroplane belonging to a- certain newspaper has left, or is leaving, Croydon to look into the whole matter, and that the newspaper's motoring corre- AVIATION has suffered another calamity at Croydon in the accident to the Air Dispatch machine, details L of which are recorded elsewhere. Everybody will regret the loss of Capt. Jones-Evans, and Mr. Jimmy Walker, the radio operator, was a popular figure at the airport. He had, I believe, been on the early morning newspaper service for a longer period than any operator. A tale is told of a morning when radio communication was essential, but when the set in the machine had packed up. He asked the pilot to circle for twenty minutes, took the set to pieces, reassembled it, and got into contact with Croydon. Relative Dangers Ordinary people rarely remember the sterling vork done day in and day out, year after year, by companies carry- ing newspapers and freight over to Paris in the very early hours. Nor do our newspapers notice that the record of air transport compares favourably with that of sea trans port during the difficult months. Recently ships have been sinking and sending out S.O.S. messages, oil has been poured on mountainous seas, and perilous rescues have been made while air transport has been operated much as usual. It was strange, indeed, that the machine was not found until the same evening, though it la " within twenty- foe yards of a main road over which, searchers tell me, petrol fumes hung so heavily that the air was dense with them. On Saturday morning another dawn machine had to ten back when crossing the Channel, and the operator wisely jettisoned the cargo of newspapers in the Channel. There is a story (in which I have little faith) that the last pundfo of papers to be thrown overboard landed somewhere inland, alongside a ruminating country constable. He is said to have placed it under arrest and sent it to the Com missioner of Wrecks, Rye Harbour. un Sunday morning, at about 4.30 a.m., some jolly barged into one of the fire alarm buttons on the air s'0", and the syren did its worst for about a quarter of an
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
