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Aviation History
1938
1938 - 0038.PDF
FLIGHT. JANUARY 6, 1938. COMMERCIAL AVIATION THE WEEK AT CROYDON Ground Transport Problems : Penny Wise : New Year Jollity by W. & B : A Booking Conference : Ice and All That DURING the brief period of thestrike in Paris, a passenger byBritish Airways took i hr. 3omin. to reach Le Bourget from the centre of the city and only i hr. 20 min. to reach Croydon from Le Bourget. Ground transport is rapidly falling be- hind in the race, for with a following wind a fast machine from Paris or Rotterdam will make the journey in these days almost as fast as the road trip from Croydon to London can be made. Clever people, including those who try to make aero- plane arrivals synchronise with those of trains which won't wait, pop up from time to time with sovereign remedies. Others, like the L.C.C., produce wonderful schemes where- by passengers, if and when they arrive at an almost permanently fog-bound airport, are to use the Under- ground, which they point out, is fog-free and unaffected by traffic lights designed to turn red at the approach of an air-passenger coach. There is, however, one tiny fly in the ointment (which actually looms as large as an albatross in the bath) to the airline operator, who, according to commercial usage, was naturally not consulted in ad- vance. Luggage, following some troglodytic tradition, may not be carried by Underground. Any traffic man will tell you that it is easier and more peaceful to skin a live and aggressive wildcat with an wholly unsuitable blunt in- strument than to part a passenger from his luggage. Be- sides, what shall it profit a man to hurtle through the bowels of the earth in ten minutes and then kick his heels for twenty in synthetic marble halls waiting for his baggage to arrive by road, especially if this pause means missing an important train connection ? So long as people gaily embark on ^600,000 airport schemes in fog areas, or find, after considerable boasting, that the whole place becomes an area of marshland, poor old Croydon, despite its numerous disadvantages, will prob- ably hold its own. Might Hove Been Very many of Croydon's snags, by the way, could have been remedied if the authorities had taken the steps they were urged and implored to take years ago. There need have been no overcrowding in the offices, in customs accommodation, in car parking nor in the hangars as there is to-day. Right from the start "penny 'vise, pound foolish " has been the motto and a miserable patch- work has been the result. About overcrowded hangars, a leading newspaper writes: "So far no new hangar is being built, no decision to build one appears to have been taken and no building enterprise begun now caji possibly be finished in time to meet the new demands as they present themselves in the form of new airliners." With the above one can disagree only on the point that there are no new demands, but old ones which have re- peatedly been placed before the authorities, for everyone could see what was coming, except those who should have seen it most clearly—that is, those responsible for arrang- ing for the future. The same newspaper says that the Air Ministry agrees that accommodation is "much over- taxed " and confesses that no decision (ever) has been made as to the measures which must be adopted. One theory is that the authorities are so very very far-seeing that they scorn to look less than fifty years ahead and thus do not cater fer the immediate future. Being unable to legislate for what may happen half a century ahead, their policy of complete inertia is entirely logical. Perhaps the B.B.C., when broadcasting in various languages to tell the world we are neither so degenerate nor so incompetent as certain fat, little, rostrum-mounted, men in funny hats would have people believe, will have a crack at explaining the odd situation whereby large civil aircraft will shortly have to be parked on the footpaths at each side of Purley Way for lack of hangar accom- modation at what we proudly term the London Terminal Airport. Not Amused There's nothing like starting the New Year with a hearty gust of laughter, thus ridding the lungs of residual air, vintage 1937. The other day, during QBI, which nowadays is our normal state, a large aeroplane tightly packed with passengers eager to leave Croydon, suffered considerable delay on the tarmac, waiting for another aeroplane to get down. The traffic boss responsible for his firm's punc- tuality record, to whom minutes seemed hours, at last so far forgot the seasonal motto, '' Peace on earth and all that," as to yell up to the control tower (sarcastic like), " Is Fred Karno there? " An earnest foreigner (with special pass to view the tower) was on the balcony. Ever anxious to help, he rushed into the tower and asked the officer on duty, "Is Fred Karno present? " To this day he fails to understand the bleached and icy stare which he received, thus turning the fancy bow tie he was wearing into a perfectly good gent's snow-white dress ditto. I am informed that a meeting was recently held at the Air Ministry, all companies, British and foreign, being invited, to discuss the layout of contact lighting to be in- stalled along the axis of the radio beam at Croydon. So, after all, you see, the Air Ministry, apart from housing problems of men and machines, is doing the necessary in the vital questions of safety—which is certainly the main thing. From a written answer to a question in the House, I see that Croydon only fell short in 1936 by ,£2,000 in paying its way. It is a sad thought that if the place had only been properly built to start with it would now be a paying proposition, presumably, for it must cost the Air Ministry a packet to maintain. Even as I write, what little day- light one gets at this time of year is obscured by platforms and scaffolding outside my window. Great fun is had by a small army of workmen dropping heavy hammers and light- weight bricklayers' mates through glass roofs beneath which people congregate for shelter, and now that the scaf- folding runs all round the buildings merry games of tiggy-
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