FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1939
1939 - 1944.PDF
JUNE 22, 1939 COMMERCIAL 639 AVIATION FLOATS FOR SUMMER : One of Canadian Airways' Junkers W.34 (Pratt and Whitney Wasp) about to take off from Confederation Lake, Ontario. THE WEEK AT CROYDON "A.Viator " on Queer Cargoes, Runways, Beer with the Bacon, and Bother on the Tarmac DE HAVILLAND Frobisher or "F" class liners of Imperial Airways, Fingal, Fiona and Fortuna, are doing yeoman service on the Paris route, and Ettrick and Eddystone, of the Armstrong Whitworth Ensign or "E" class, seem to be hard at work, whilst more of the " E " class are expected daily. Apropos this American equipment business, one feels that the best way to get the aircraft and engines which were so necessary was to have bought abroad five or ten years ago and then to have said to our manufacturers at home, " Now give us something on the same lines but better." It would have been produced all right, for, when roused, nobody can do so thorough a job in any walk of life as can the Britisher. Some of the queer cargoes we have had lately—owing partly, perhaps, to the boom in air freight—include emeralds, diamonds and diamond dust, currants, corn, salt herrings, live squirrels, dead squirrels (in the form of fur coats), chemicals, wireless parts, machine tools, tobacco samples, mangoes, sample bricks (light to drop, Govern ment servants, for the use of), and various insects for experimental purposes, such as a mockery of mosquitoes, an apparition of aphides and a ferocity of fleas. Flowers and fruit have been arriving steadily by K.L.M. night freighter around 1.30 a.m. to catch the early morn ing Co vent Garden Market. About three tons of straw berries and three tons of flowers reached Croydon from Holland a week or so back. Pilots tell me that the new Oslo airport, Fornebu by name, is magnificent; it is hewn out of solid rock and is entirely of asphalt as to its surface. All this landing on grass, mud and dust is silly and out of date ; what we want is asphalt or a proper system of concrete runways, marked as at Schiphol, Amsterdam, with numbers. Pilots are allocated their runway number when approaching, and a lot of difficulties and anxieties are avoided, especially with service trainees buzzing around all the time. Last Saturday Imperial Airways held their sports, and a very jolly, well-organised function it was. Southampton sent a perfectly paralysing tug-of-war team in Rugger kit; they could undoubtedly have pulled the leaning tower of Pisa straight. Amazingly swift and pretty ladies raced and it struck me that a young man would have difficulty in avoiding capture if chased. There was one of those genial tents marked "All Day Licence " and there's noth ing so good as a pint of bitter at 4 p.m. when lesser folk are seeking the tea tent, because normally you can't get beer then. Don't say "tut tut"; your great-grandfather probably took his pint of ale at breakfast time and it did him a power of good. Danish Air Lines' first Focke-Wulf-Condor is registered OY-DAM., and the second one to appear here at Croydon is called OY-DEM—which as Mr. Mantalini ought have said, seems demnition refeened. Danish air hostesses, by the way, wear the most attrac tive kit of the lot—smartly cut light grey flannel suit and natty forage cap to match, with pale blue shirt and dark blue tie. Incidentally, why should dark blue be the colour of most air companies' uniforms? It shows a paucity of imagination to follow the lead of Navies and Merchant services, and dark blue gets dusty and looks shabby so quickly. Swissair seem to me to be on the right track with their Air Force blue uniforms. Qround Control It is time we had some sort of actively functioning tar mac harbourmaster at Croydon. I have just seen a small Belgian-registered private machine (temporarily aban doned by its owner in a berth urgently required by an arriving " F " class aeroplane of Imperial Airways) rock ing like a row boat in the wake of the Queen Mary. Reason for the near wrecking of the smaller craft was a tri-motor, curiously enough of Sabena, running-up just ahead. Ultimately four men rushed out to hold the small machine down, then removed chocks from behind its wheels and tried to push it forward, up hill and against the artificial gale. The result was that the whole outfit was wafted away backwards out of control, with every man asking his neighbour why the so-and-so he did not do something about it. Luckily the Commander of Fingal .saw what might happen and stopped well clear of the. proceedings, otherwise an "F" class liner might have been put out of service. That is not so funny, and goes to show that private owners and such are allowed to park where they like, and its nobody's business to control their actions or their machines. As The Reward of Patience S inferred recently by "A. Viator" in his weekly com- t ments, the K.L.M. Amsterdam-Liverpool service is obtain ing quite an appreciable amount of traffic this season. During the first two weeks of the service seventy-two passengers travelled between Holland and Manchester, the figure for the second fortnight increasing to ninety, while freight loads over the same period amounted to 2,646 lb. and 4,550 lb. respec tively. These figures are not really outstanding, but they are very much better than those of previous years, and show that persistence and regularity have their results. Incidentally, at least one Manchester passenger has left on a through journey by K.L.M. to Karachi.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
