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Aviation History
1937
1937 - 0382.PDF
146 FLIGHT. FEBRUARY II, 1937. heating, almost too warm. I took off my hat and coat. Never have I experienced such a comfortable journey in mid-winter. Among the fittings in this particular machine were two not usually found on British aircraft. One is standard on JU.52S It is a flexible tube with a metal nozzle con taining a small steel ball as an automatic shut-off. When the ball is tapped back a thin stream of pure cold air from outside issues from the nozzle. If a passenger feels at all faint he can apply a stream of cool air about his face, a'nd without causing a draught for others. It would be of use to me if exhaust fumes entered the cabin. The other fitting is carried on the trans-Alpine route. It comprises an oxygen bottle, together with nozzle equipment, so that those who feel faint owing to height can obtain a supply of oxygen. There are enough bottles to supply all passengers without leaving their seats. Unlike the Junkers from Amsterdam to Berlin, the Italian 'plane earned a notice forbidding smoking; no cigarette lighters or ashtrays were provided. After flying for some forty minutes a gap or two ap peared in the fog belt below, and we could just see the winding course of the River Elbe. Then the fog filled in once more. Our next sight of the ground was near the frontier of Czechoslovakia, where the tops of the moun tains projected above the fog. One solitary rounded hill top, in German territory, was sprinkled with snow; its fir trees stuck out like quills. It looked like an enormous hedgehog wobbling its way through the fog, for our passage through the air gave it the optical illusion of movement. Towards the Alps In an hour we had flown 137 miles and climbed to just ever 11,000 feet, with the engines running at 2,100, 2,200, and 2,100 r.p.m. A layer of cloud floated above us. We passed through it and saw still another layer above. The Alps, 160 miles away, stood up like a wall between the fog and the sky-line. The fog on the ground appeared to be thicker, but at 13,500 feet we were so far above it that I could not esti mate how high it was above the ground. I heard the engines open out and went forward to read the tachometers. All three had gone up 50 revs, per minute. Our speed increased to 143 m.p.h. There was no sign of Munich when the wireless oper ator passed back a note to say that it lay below, and that the wind was against us. We had covered 320 miles in exactly two hours. Ahead the Alps grew straight out of the fog. Soon we were crossing the first of the rock walls. The mountains were free of cloud. Now, at a height of 14,750 feet, a magnificent panorama lay below. Great valleys opened out between huge mountains that rose up just below our wings. The crossed winding valley of the Inn disap peared, and the last chance of making a forced landing. I saw one little village precariously perched on a steep slope by the banks of a wildly rushing stream. Every where the hills were covered in snow except for the steepest escarpments where snow never lies. Over the Brenner we reached our greatest height—16,500 feet. Then we began to go slowly down. *I knew the Dolomites with their curious red colour and the columnar formation that marks that distinctive region. The red of the rock caught the rays of the sun. It shone vividly, like a splash of paint across an etching of black and white. There was not a bump in the sky as, at 150 m.p.h., we swept steadily south over the hills that drop down to the Venetian plain. Below were the Brenta and the Piave rivers, known to our airmen who flew on the Italian front during the Great War. Fog filled the plain beyond. We could see nothing ahead. Behind rose the great moun tain mass over which we had flown. Gradually we came lower with throttled engines until we were just skimming the top of the fog belt. Time and again I thought the pilot was about to enter the fog ; but I was deceived by a steady billowing-down of its upper layer, a curious formation I have seldom seen. At last I saw the sudden vertical break in the fog level which denotes a seaboard below. Just beyond it the pilot shut the engines right back. We entered the fog at a height of 1,200 feet. Steadily the altimeter in the cabin went down. Suddenly, about 200 feet below, we saw the sea apparently tilted up at an angle with little fishing boats on its upper edge—an optical illusion caused by the blind downward glide and the foreshortened horizon due to the fog. A swift left-hand turn brought us over the Lido airport. Next instant the wheels were trundling along the ground. With hardly any taxying run we pulled up alongside the airport building and got out after an efficient flight of 3 hours 36 minutes at an average speed of 147 m.p.h. over 528 miles. Although late in leaving Berlin, our non-stop journey had brought us to Venice ahead of schedule. After clear ing Customs, passports and money, there was ample time for a comfortable lunch at the excellent airport restaurant. Sixty-eight minutes later I was in the air again in another Junkers 52 (I-BAUS), this time with seven pas sengers. We swept off the ground down the long narrow airport, got a fleeting glimpse of Venice on the right, with its lagoon, canals and lovely buildings, before, in a swift climbing turn to the left, we entered the drizzle of fog. The Russet Apennines In a moment or two we were above it. Again there was the monotonous stretch of cloud with nothing to be seen but the Alps away to the right rear. I went to sleep. When I awoke we were above the Apennines. Their peaks stuck up through the clouds. On their farther side the fog retreated into cloud-filled valleys, and the lakes beyond were dimly visible. Although I have flown over many parts of the world, above hills of all descriptions, I know that if I could be suddenly transported in an aeroplane, blindfolded and without knowing where I was going, and then my sight were released so that I looked down on the Apennines, Perugia and Assisi, I would know that the hills on which I looked were not Spanish, nor South American, nor Indian, nor hills of any other place but only those of Italy. Their bare and lovely russet colour, their sudden steeps and rounded slopes, the cities that nestle at their feet, the villages and castles that surmount their summits, their change to fawn where the stratum of the rock alters, are characteristic of a landscape that for loveliness of changing contour and variety of scenic beauty is unsurpassed. Below us the muddy Tiber wound its tortuous course towards Rome. Villages became more frequent. Along a straight road motor cars seemingly crawled as our pilot came steadily lower. Near one wide bend of the river he headed off in a left-hand turn ; looking through the right- hand windows, I could see the buildings of Rome. Flying over Rome is not permitted. We caught but a glimpse of its nearer suburbs before we glided low above the river, then side-slipped over a bank of reeds and hedge into the airport of Littoria, 1 hour 38 minutes after leaving Venice—250 miles at an average 152 miles an hour. In a few minutes we were in the Ala Littoria bus, and a quarter of an hour later we were in the heart of Rome itself. The air journey from London, through Amsterdam to Berlin, Venice and Rome impressed me with the efficiency of international civil air lines. It occupied a total flving time of only nine hours four minutes, a journey that by terrestrial transport would occupy forty-two hours. But, when I wanted to return to England, there was no air service that would take me straight from Rome to London. This is a defect in the air routes of Europe that should be put right. (The next article in this series will describe a visit to the Reichshiftfahrtministeriiim.)
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