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Aviation History
1938
1938 - 1952.PDF
14 FLIGHT JTTLY 7, 1938. COMMERCIAL THE WEEK AT CROYDON clA. Viator's " Causerie on Airline Affairs at London's Main Terminal and Elsewhere WHEN Alice, in Through the Looking-glass, was in the wood with Tweedles Dum and Dee, it got darker and darker. '' What a thick black cloud that is," said Alice, "and how fast it comes! Why! I do believe it's got wings! " That is how we felt at Croydon when the enormous bulk of the first A.W. of the Ensign class hovered over the Airport. Alice gives no technical details of the landing of the monstrous crow, but I am quite sure it could not have landed more slowly than did Ensign. Every body was amazed at the slowness of the landing, and the absence of run afterwards. Once on the ground and drawn up for inspection the huge bulk and fine proportions of the machine were evident, and not only did every other machine on the tarmac look half its real size but even the hangars, the buildings and the control tower seemed a size smaller suddenly. Somebody suggested that the tailplanes would form use ful spares as wings for the average light aeroplane, and another bystander remarked, gazing at the formidable undercarriage, that there should be quarters for a resident engineer somewhere just above each wheel. Ever since some futuristic-minded journalist christened a two- (with hick) seater aeroplane an "airliner" many years ago there has been a shade of ridicule in the term, but at last Croydon has seen something genuinely worthy of the expression. Ensign made remarkably fast trips to Paris and back, and was then, somewhat harshly, perhaps, sent to Coventry. In the air her proportions are, indeed, admirable, and, head-on from a distance, she has the lines of a hovering kestrel—just two wings and a tiny streamlined body. Taxying away, she looks like a ship leaving port, and the other day this idea was enhanced by a siren-like wail from her brakes as she turned. An extremely impres sive aeroplane indeed, and one Imperial Airways has just cause to be proud of. Where to Where? Meanwhile, what with all this excitement, and the Em pire boats at Southampton, one newspaper has completely lost touch with reality and let the printing presses take charge and run amok. Believe it or not, I have a cutting from which, not without a certain awe, I quote as follows: '' From Croydon to Sydney in just over nine days is the scheduled time for a new twice-a-week flying boat service to Australia. ... It is a landmark in the progress of civil aviation." I'll say it is! The word landmark is an exact description of the scar on the airport surface which a" flying boat might be expected to make. It is, of course, possible that the scribe is thinking of the 7^-8-day service from Croydon to Sydney recently inaugurated quite quietly by K.L.M. and K.N.I.L.M., but why accuse people of using flying boats from Croydon, or ior the matter of that, landplanes off Southampton Water? Some of the romance of a life on the ocean wave has just been thrust on to civil aviation by the Ministry of Health. For two hundred years or so it has been neces sary for a ship's captain to signal "All well on board" when coming in to port. This means, apparently, that nobody has died during the voyage, that there are no infections cases aboard, and, lastly, that no rats or mice have died other than by poison during the trip. I simply daren't ask you to believe me when I say TRANSATLANTIC PREPARATION : One of the Gipsy Twelves being installed in the D.H. Albatross, two of which are to be used eventually for transatlantic experiments. that this solemn Ministry now requires the commander of an airliner which has made an hour and a half's flight from Paris or Amsterdam to signal that all is well in the matter of corpses which have become such en route; of infectious diseases which have developed on the way (for no air company, naturally, will accept such passengers), and, above and beyond all, of deceased rats and mice on his aeroplane. Complications may occur when a company's house flag gets jammed and cannot be hoisted on arrival, for not to hoist the flag means " All is not well on board." In such a case the Captain will be closely questioned. Having ascertained, with a sharp pin, that all passengers and crew are alive and kicking, he will then closely question his First Officer (a white-mouse breeder) as to whether Montgomery, the pink-eyed pet of the ship's company, is in his usual health. All being well, he will then sternly eye a pimple on the steward's chin and enquire whether it is a contagious or infectious one. With a bit of luck and no hint from a passenger who has been celebrating that there was a green rat on the ceiling but which is now missing (presumed dead), all will really become well on board exactly one hour G.M.T. after arrival and the pas sengers may depart for London with the full sanction of the Ministry of Health and the approval (for all one can tell) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. Maritime Laughter is a great promoter of health, and it's the Ministry of Health's job to promote health. The pro longed howls of mirth provided by this Order must have put the physical fitness standard at Croydon up by at least 2 deg. Centigrade. In issuing "Statutory Rules and Orders, No. 299, Public Health, England, Aircraft Regu lations, 1938," in which you will find all the jollv flummery about corpses in cabins and dead rodents in the lee scuppers, the Ministry of Health has done noble service to the Physical Fitness Campaign. Passenger traffic has never been so good on all lines, and news from Heston is to the effect that the same applies to British Airways there as it does to all companies without
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