FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1944
1944 - 1741.PDF
AUGUST 24TH, 1944 FLIGHT 199 London—Paris One of the two Airco machines which inaugurated the London-Paris service in 1919 was this D.H.16. It carried four passengers. Twenty~five Years Ago To-morrow the First Regular Air Service Between the British and French Capitals Was Inaugurated MONDAY last saw the inauguration of the daily air service between London and Paris, organised by Messrs. Aircraft Transport and Travel, Ltd. Two Aireo machines set out from this side and one machine from Paris." In those words was recorded, in Flight of August 28th, 1919, the beginning of British commercial iftriation. The modesty of the announcement was in keep ing with.the service, which was flown with converted war time machines. The word " commercial'' is something of a misnomer, for one pilot to two or three passengers could scarcely be considered a commercial proposition, especially since the pilots were (one hopes!) well paid. They cer tainly ought to have been, for on their skill and judgment depended the lives of the passengers, far more than is the case in modern times. It must be remembered that these heroes had to navigate without radio, and in thick weather they had per force to fly low so as to pick up known landmarks as they went along. That does not sound quite so daring nowadays, but in those days'engines had not reached the wonderful reliability which we now take for granted. Forced landings were fairly common occurrences, and when flying "by Bradshaw," as we used to call the practice of following railway lines so as to avoid getting lost, many a pilot had to put his aircraft down in most unlikely places. It speaks well for their skill that they nearly always managed to pull off fairly safe landings. In this they were, of course, helped by their low landing speeds. But to return to that historic day of August 25th, 1910, Flight recorded that an Airco 4 biplane left Hounslow at 9.10 a.m. piloted by Lt. E. H. Lawford and carrying one passenger, a number of newspapers, a consignment of leather, several brace of grouse, "and a considerable number of jars of Devonshire cream." It arrived at Le Bourget at ir.40. Actually, the Airco 4 was not on the regular run, which was made later by an Airco 16 piloted by Major Cyril Patterson, who carried four passengers. The machine left Hounslow at 12.30 and landed at Le Bourget, Paris, at 2.45. The first return flight was made by an Airco 4A. This was piloted by Lt. J? McMullin, and one of his passengers was Law- ford, who had piloted the early machine to Paris. A converted Handley Page 0/400 bomber carried 14 passengers to Paris on August 25th, 1910.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
