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Aviation History
1939
1939 - 1841.PDF
The two-passenger Airco D.H.4 used by Air Transport and Travel for the first commercial services to Paris from Hounslow Heath—with freight delivery sidecar in the foreground. D.H.i6s were also used. specially suited to their needs. In 1926 the Armstrong Whitworth Argosy was commissioned, and this twenty- passenger type was the first to have the amenities which are now considered to be normal. The Argosies were in service on European and Empire routes until 1931, while during the same period D.H.66s, or Hercules, of somewhat similar layout, were used on the eastern, and Short Calcutta boats on the Mediterranean sections of the Empire services. Almost from their inception Imperial Air ways ceased to look on their European services as being necessarily of prime importance, and in 1925 the Egypt-India route was surveyed and, since this was the first move in the development of the company's most important long-distance event—that to Australia—it might be as well now to sectionise the com pany's work under four different headings— the Australia route, the African route, the European services and, more recently, experi mental oceanic and other flights. The year 1926 forms the most convenient jumping-off point, because until that time the problems were not so divergent and the fleet remained more or less unspecialised. The history of the main trunk route to Australia really begins with the regular mail and freight service between Cairo and Baghdad which was started in 1921 by the Royal Air Force. In those days there were no available radio facilities, and navigation across the desert was FLIGHT, June 15, IQ3Q. assisted by means of a specially ploughed furrow. Imperial Airways' ow a plans for the first section of the Australia service, between Cairo and Karachi, had been completed by 1926, but the project was held up by restrictions along the Persian side of the Persian Gulf, and the preliminary Egypt-Iraq service was not actually extended to India until 1929. In the meantime D.H. Hercules had been flying between Cairo and Basra, and a complete and permanent ground service for this route had been organised. In the same year a trans-Mediter ranean service was established, using Calcuttas, pas sengers for Egypt and India travelling by train from Basle (later Paris) to Genoa (later Brindisi), and thence by flying-boat to Alexandria. This somewhat compli cated, though politically inevitable, mixture of transport methods remained in force until 1937 when the first ot the fleet of Short Empire boats was put into service. Thereafter, Southampton became the Empire service base, and the boats flew through to their destinations. In many ways the Egypt-India section of the Australia service was the most difficult to organise, since stopping points, airports and rest-houses had to be constructed in such a way that they could be protected against nomads, while locked petrol dumps had to be established, with the inevitable iron rations. One of the first machines to be specially designed for transport work, the D.H.34 was developed from the D.H.18 civil type and carried ten passengers on a 450 h.p. Napier Lion at a cruising speed of about 100 m.p.h. These first services to India were run satisfactorily toi nearly a year and brought Karachi within seven days of London. In due course more and more use was made of the service, not only by passengers but for the carriage of mails, and an average of 40,000 letters were already being carried by 1930. During a short intermediate period, political troubles with Italy made it necessary to alter the Euro pean section of the route, and for eighteen months passengers were forced to travel by train from Basle to Vienna, Budapest and Salonika before joining the Mediter ranean flying boat. After a tem porary resumption of the original scheme more political difficulties were experienced, but eventually the European section of the route settled down to one in which the Paris-Brindisi part of the journey was made by train. In 1931 the seven-day schedule to India was reduced to six days by flying the Short Calcuttas from Four typical machines at Waddon, alias Croydon, in 1920 (above) and 1922. On the left in the top picture is a D.H. 16 (a modified D.H.9 used by A.T.T., and on the right is a Koolhoven B.A.T. used by Instone Air Line. In the background an Instone Vickers Vimy Commercial may just be seen. Below are two Handley Page Transport W.8Bs~ a picture taken when this type, a development of the 0 400 bomber and the W.8., first went into service
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