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Aviation History
1938
1938 - 0741.PDF
17, 1938. FLIGHT. 267 COMMERCIAL AVIATION CENTRAL CENTRE : The new Belfast Harbour Airport which was due to be opened yesterday by Mrs. NevilleChamberlain. The excellence of the approaches does not need to be stressed and its position in relation to the city centre gives it special interest in these days of forty-minute motor rides. THE WEEK AT CROYDON —and Elsewhere : "A. Viator" Muses on the Air Transport News PASSENGER traffic has continued brisk, and othernotable live stock has been observed on the air routesalso. Percy, the mystery goldfish, whom I like to think of in a black homburg with a neatly rolled umbrella over a well-gloved fin, was found in an Imperial machine at Paris with no owner. After a pretty fishy evening at the Poisson d'Or, Mont- martre (which he could never refer to afterwards without a deep, golden-red blush), Percy was returned to London. Admirers sent gifts of ants' eggs, and one lady offered him a home in an ornamental pond, company's water h. and c, up-to-date worm bar, and all the usual offices. Percy was understood to indicate that pond life made no appeal to him after la vie Parisienne and that some really gay swim- ming pool, where a poor fish could see a bit of life, was more in his line. Alas! however, poor Percy took and died on ImperialAirways just about the time the Cadman report was issued, which reminds me that the temperature on theroof of the Air Ministry was phenomenally high just when those below hatches there were awaiting the same interest-ing news. There was also considerable interest at Croydon—to return to live stock—when the Hon. Mrs. Taffy Rodd arrived from Berlin by K.L.M. accompanied by an Aus- tralian kinkajou and a tiny animal fit to make Walt Disney a further fortune—a South American bush baby. It has to be seen to bebelieved (and not seen after dinner, either). It. s no .bigger than a moderately robust rat and has enor- mous eyes which glow red like tail lamps. Also it climbs wal]s and, in a room, leaps from picture to picture. The kinkajou displays incredible intelligence in domestic "ic, I am told, and this one has discovered that a " kink "wtllch swings on (for example) the chain of a shower bath is rewarded by a soul-satisfying torrent of water which is music to the ears. Any confusion which may exist at the moment in Air Ministry circles may serve, perhaps, as an excuse for the otherwise incredible behaviour of those who wished that dangerous and useless pylon on to us some time back. The thing is 150 or 200 yards from the obstruction (which is not, and never has been, regarded as an obstruction by pilots), which it is supposed to mark—to wit, a school tower. Being 150 yards or so nearer to the landing field, this pylon is regarded as dangerous by pilots, and protests have been made—about a month ago, incidentally. Last week, with something of the agility of a dead frog galvanised with electricity, those responsible decided to saw a couple of feet off the pylon and to remove the obstruction light from it. As this sounds- utterly incredible, I quote the actual message received by the companies: "All concerned, Air Navigation Warning.—The pylon marking the obstruction at Russell Hill School to the South of the Airport at Croydon has been reduced below the level of the trees and is no longer lighted." As it is not in the immediate vicinity of the trees, it is immaterial that it is now below their level. Some say the light has been put back on the pylon since that notice came round, and others say that the original alleged obstruction is now lighted or about to be lighted. The school authorities, I am told, know of no reason why the school tower itself should not have been lighted to start with, in which case £600 to ^800 spent on this tomfool steel pylon could have been saved. Instead of dithering with the thing and sawing bits off it, illuminating it one day and having it dowsed the next, those responsible would do well to dismantle it before an accident occurs.
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