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Aviation History
1938
1938 - 0634.PDF
224 FLIGHT. MARCH IO, 1938. I COMMERCIAL AVIATION CYCLONE-PCWERED " FOURTEEN " : The first Lockheed 14 transport for the Royal Dutch Air Lines. This model has Wright Cyclone G engines (850/1,000 h.p.) which, it is estimated, should give it a top speed of over 265 m.p.h. Machines of this type will be used on K.L.M.'s West Indian services, and this particular 14 has recently been flown to Curacao by Cdr. Geisendorffer. THE WEEK AT CROYDON Spring Rush : Freight Comparisons : Personalities About Pilots : Obsolete Illness W HEN " Works and Bricks," capering like a slow-motion film of snails at play, start an elaboratesystem of entrenchments which cannot but Lst over the whole summer-rush period, we at Croydon know that spring is here. There will, of course, be the usual gipsy encampment, lorries full of tea urns and solid re- freshments, and a steam roller with a nice bright fir.; to make t^ast by. Last Saturday, coinciding with all this, there was a rush of air traffic, especially to Germany, and the K.L.M. 8.30 a.m. Berlin Air Express had to be dupli- cated, close on forty passengers being booked. This was due in part to the end of the Berlin Motor Show and partly to the opening of the Leipzig Fair. Somebody who had a parcel by air was arguing that it was-expensive compared with boat, so I looked a step or two further into the matter. If time is money it is far cheaper by air to begin with. Another thing is packing costs. In order to stand up to the good old game of " Porter's Knock " or " Stevedore's Spillikins " (the main rule of which is for A to hurl a parcel at B, who steps smartly aside with a carefree laugh and lets the parcel hit the wall behind) one has to pack fragile goods for surface transport in iron-bound seamen's chests. This heavy packing, apart from the fact that freight is charged by weight, is expensive in itself, and many customers send by air because, on the whole, it is cheaper. Air freight rates, according to the I.A.T.A. accepted scale, may be more than shipping rates, but try to send by surface transport a weak wicker basket of strawberries merely covered with cellophane as a lid (the normal pack- ing for fruit by air) and see what happens. There is, of course, the story of the man who liked getting fresh fruit by boat and train in a flattened condition, because he was able to dry the flattened mass in a brisk oven and sell the result as oriental door-mats ; but the idea makes no general appeal in Covent Garden, I understand. Pilots are in the news at the moment. Besides Cdr. Geisendarffer flying the first Lockheed Super Electra from California to Curacao for K.L.M., another of the same com- pany's pilots, Cdr. Fryns, is about to set out on a prolonged tour of Persia and adjacent countries with a party of archaeologists. Capt. Wilcockson is the first commercial pilot of Imperial Airways to fly in the basement of the Mayo composite when the top-floor flat becomes detached—I trust it will never be semi-detached. I have not heard his opinionJ—which is one of the utmost importance, for what test pilots think it not necessarily based on the same everyday, working ex- perience as the opinion of a man like " Wilkie." Then there is Capt. Slocum, of British Airways, vhcse main worry at the moment, I understand, is how to keep sparrows from tearing the crocuses to pieces at his country cottage, where he leads a bachelor life in the intervals of high-speed aviation. He has piled up half a million flying miles in only eight years, for much of his R.A.F. flying was on Furies. Although a featherweight, he managed to hold the E.A.F. middleweight boxing championship for some time. Once, when there were " brass hats " around, he decided to fly under a wire strung between two hangars, and did so just as the well-lunched group, gaggle or bluster came round a corner. The wind of his passing set the expensive and glittering headgear prancing across the aerodrome like so many mad March hares with gold knobs on. Mileage Cdr. Moll, co-pilot to Cdr. Parmentier in the Mildenhall- Melbourne race, had flown about a million and a quarter miles when he celebrated his thirty-eighth birthday last Sunday. He started his career in the Dutch merchant service, and became a first-class radio operator and then did a spell in the Air Force before joining K.L.M. in 1925. Tradition yet lingers in remote villages that trains blow up every second journey, whereas statistics prove that they only do so every fourth or more. Tradition, alas, still lingers in various places that airline travellers are habitu- ally air sick. Even so well informed a journal as The Hotel Review, in discussing the Croydon Aerodrome Hotel, remarks that it must be extremely embarrassing to have air- sick passengers arriving at 3.30 in the afternoon and re- quiring a glass of brandy, not as a drink, but as a medicine. I don't suppos3 the Airport Hotel gets one genuine case a year from a major airline which is properly run on " over weather " principles. Fly below the clouds and you tin get air sickness, but fly over them and there is practically i'° such thing, though I agree that fhere are some people who are determined to be ill at all costs. They turn green ^ anyone spins a top in their vicinity, and are usually vii t'ffls of train sickness, motor-bus malaise, and horse-cab hic- coughs. A. VTAT>R
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