FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1937
1937 - 1393.PDF
MAY 27, 1937. FLIGHT. 525 COMMERCIAL /\V/AT/ON — AIRLINES AIRPORTS- THE WEEK AT CROYDON Schooling : Overcrowding : Sleeping Out : Scheduled Arrival : Overweather SENIOR Imperial Airways pilots are all getting the good old Avro 652 on their tickets—that is, such of them as have been too busy to bother about it up to now. .This machine is used here for training Imperial school pupils, and the flying training used to be mainly in Capt. Walter's hands. He was recently .appointed Assistant Air Superintendent, and it is said that other senior pilots will now undertake the training work. It is interesting that K.L.M. junior pilots are all "passed out" by various senior airline pilots rather than by a whole-time instructor —an extremely practical system. Midnight Arrival Last week the Dutch company inaugurated what is, I believe, the first passenger service to arrive at Croydon at midnight. Saturday's and Sunday's arrivals were exactly to schedule: 0.00 hrs. Passengers reach London at a some what depressing hour when, incidentally, the brightly lit and bustling K.L.M. Horseferry House office will strike a cheery note in an otherwise desolate city where you can't get a drink unless you know where to go by some occult instinct, and only then if you agree to eat a three-ply sandwich with a middle layer constructed of teak. K.L.M., by the way, has a new and attractive coach, very similar to the big ones used by Imperial Airways. The internal decoration is luxurious, and there is heating—very neces sary in winter, and by no means to be despised either at something after midnight on chill summer evenings, or at 6.10.a.m. when the first of the day's passengers leave London. So well-heated, too, are the modern transport aeroplanes that a cold coach journey to town is the more intolerable by contrast. Prospective Removals British Airways have, I hear, already felt the benefit of the removal of the Railway Clearing House ban, and the big London agents are showing considerable interest in their bookings. There are persistent but unconfirmed rumours that British Airways find Croydon too cramped in the matter of hangarage and office accommodation, and that they will be moving once again. Probably the move would be a wise one, otherwise we might contract that form of disease with which too many fowls using one bit of ground are afflicted. If Imperial Airways also move, a provident and foreseeing Air Ministry will be able to pat itself on the back and remark, " There you are, plenty of room, you see! " As things are, you can't get an office at all at Croydon, and hangar accommodation is an acute problem. Is it not time, by the way, that all aeroplanes were like the Junkers, which only require a couple or three ring bolts set in concrete as accommodation for the night? As a matter of fact, most all-metal types would be all right in the open, but aeroplanes, like the domesticated jungle fowl, have acquired the hen-house habit. British Airways find that a ihr. 30mm. schedule can be maintained in almost all wind and weather conditions on the London-Paris route with their Electras, and I have heard talk of sticking firmly to that schedule day in, day out, and eschewing the empty honour of '' tail-wind records," which merely land passengers in places far too early for their appointments. Air transport people have always been inclined to say (like the old sailing packets) that they will "arrive at such-and-such a time, wind and weather permitting," which is entirely the wrong way to look at the matter. Reserve power should not be used, surely, to boost up a schedule which can only be kept in favourable weather. I am sure exact arrival time is nearly as important as exact departure time, and the first com pany which sticks to an arrival schedule should have the full support of the travelling public. Freight has been brisk lately. The Coronation issues of newspapers surprised many firms by weighing about three times as much per copy, so that the regular daily load of so many copies was unexpectedly heavy. Straw berries from France and Holland have been coming in regularly, and the other day I heard a well-satisfied cus tomer crooning over some rare orchids which had come through in about six days from Java. Blue and white Lircons, which I thought were birds, also arrived by air and proved to be some precious stones. Something Neiv to Sell Possibly the Greeks had a word for it, but we have none to describe that most important aspect of air travel known as flying above the clouds. The Americans have a word or, rather, a couple of words for this—or for semi- stratosphere flying—which strikes me as an admirable slogan. "Overweather flying" they call it, and it is a mystery to me why every publicity man of every airline in Europe has not worked out a similar slogan. It is all right to sell speed and safety, but in " overweather flying " air transport people have an article to sell which is un obtainable elsewhere. Regular overweather travel means virtual elimination of travel sickness. Progress in this line by shipping people has advanced from a skin-clad aborigine offering the coracle traveller a coarse earthenware bowl to a suave steward offering him or her a beautiful spode one. The victim suffers the same agonies as his prehistoric pro totype. When travelling over clouds you can hold a brim ming bumper knowing that the contents will be applied internally and not be distributed all over your sartorial] y perfect exterior. Again, even in winter air, travellers have a warm sun and blue sky when less enterprising people are hooting outside harbours or travelling over a bombardment of fog signals. A. VIATOR. North Sea Preparations ALLIED AIRWAYS (GANDAR DOWER), LTD., made their first experimental flight from Necastie to Stavan- ger, Norway, on Saturday of last week in preparation for the regular service which they hope to operate later in the summer. Everything appears to have gone off according to plan, and the landing was, of course made, at the new airport at Sola. The machine used was a D.H. Rapide—preparatory to the delivery of the 86B—and Mr. E. A. Starling was the pilot. In addition to a radio operator and ground engineer, Mr. Gandar Dower and Miss Brunning were carried. The original plan was to fly fram Stavenger to Oslo to meet civic authorities and the representatives of D.N.L.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
