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Aviation History
1944
1944 - 2091.PDF
OCTOBER 12TH, 1944 FLIGHT 395 CONTINENTAL MISCELLANY been mistaken for Cairo. Down below the international football match was in progress; the stands were crowded, but scarcely a single car was to be seen in the vicinity. The city itself appeared untouched, but focal points such as Le Bourget airport, the marshalling yards and the Renault factory are, of course, in smithereens. Bridges have always been the most difficult of targets to destroy, and an air trip down the Seine from Paris to Rouen is an object lesson in good shooting. Each bridge has been attacked on the diagonal in copy-book style, and it is evident from the bomb pattern on the ground that a number were destroyed in the first attack. Others, of course, proved more elusive, and the immediate area of the abutments has suffered rather more than usual. As Falaise is approached the war scars on the ground become more and more numerous until, in the intensive area, every field is pock-marked by shell and bomb craters, fox holes and gun emplacements. Dotted here and there are burnt-out tanks and wrecks of aircraft which have FROM very early days the name Handley Page has been associated with large aircraft. The foundation was laid during the first World War, when the O/400 twin-engined bomber was produced. This was followed by an even larger four-engined bomber, the V/1500. From that day to the present time there have always been three large Handley Page types in being, one in service with the R.A.F., another working civilly on its lawful occasions, and a third " on the drawing board." "Always" is, per haps, not strictly correct, for at the moment there is no Hannibal type in use, unless it be as a greenhouse in some body's back, garden. But in its time that class of machine set a new standard in passenger comfort, and flew hundreds of thousands of miles and carried a round million or so of passengers without ever causing grievous harm to one of them. Of it a wag said that it was "as steady as the Rock of Gibraltar, and nearly as fast." After this war there will be a Handley Page to carry on the civil tradition. We hope it will, like the Hannibal, Per Person STARTLING reductions in the average passenger-mile fares for Latin-America were announced by Mr. Juan T. Trippe, president of Pan American Airways, at a recent Press conference which he conducted personally in the firm's New York offices. Present passenger fares were given as averaging 8.75 cents per mile, but when the new scales come fully into operation the average will be down to 4.25 cents per mile-j-less than half! Some of the new- fares will be as low as 3.5 cents per passenger mile! The main idea behind these slashing reductions, Mr. Trippe is reported to have stated, is to cater for the " average man " as a passenger instead of offering a luxury service for the relatively few business men who travel at their firms' expense, and he emphasised the trade benefits to*be reaped by carrying people at low fares throughout Latin-America, especially U.S. tourists. The new plan, he pointed out, would enable working people to take a two-weeks' holiday at reasonable rates, visiting such places as Rio and Buenos Aires. Not only the halved fares, but also far swifter schedules caught fire and only left their wing tips and tail plane as recognisable objects. The sides of the roads all bear testi mony to the effectiveness of our air attacks on transport. Tanks, lorries and cars lie there in their hundreds. Just burnt-out, rusting hulks. As we approached the original invasion area the crew of the Dakota in which I was a passenger started to reminisce. They had dropped troops of the Sixth Airborne Division at 1 a.m. on the night of D-Day. Three runs over the D.Z. had to be made to get the troops out close together. This was performed at 600ft. and it is not surprising that they were shot down. Among other troubles the whole of the nose and instru ment panel was shot away. There was something humorous about how "Titch," the radio operator, was pulled out while the "Dak " was in the water, but I never gained the real significance of that. The Horsa and Hamil- car gliders, all wrecked beyond repair, are still there to show what excellent concentration was made in the start of operations which have since proved so successful. In the fields around, the thousands of anti-invasion props, which were put up by a nervous enemy, are now gradually disappearing to provide firewood for the local inhabitants. be as steady as the Rock, and it is likely to be a good deal faster. On estimated figures, based on experience with the Halifax bombers and on wind tunnel tests of models, the new machine should cruise at about 240 m.p.h. at 10,oooft., using only some 50 per cent, of the full power of its four Bristol Hercules engines. That is a very creditable performance indeed lor an aircraft which, as a freighter, will have a pay load of 16,000 lb., and which, alternatively, will carry up to 50 passengers in a fully pressurised cabin. Cruising at 50 per cent, of the engine power should make for greater reliability and low fuel consumption. The latter is reflected in the normal range, which is 2,000 miles. Hermes is the name given to the new Handley Page com mercial aircraft. Iti Greek mythology Hermes was the son of Zeus and Maia, the daughter of Atlas. In British avia tion history the new Handley Page is thus the son of the lower component of the Short-Mayo Composite, and grand son of the Armstrong Whitworth Army co-op. machine. In the Odyssey he appears as a messenger of the gods. per Trippe would be introduced which would enable workers to reach these distant holiday venues within the space of theii comparatively short vacations. Pan American, in fact, has decided to jump in one bound into the field of cheap, fast air travel for the masses, and the new system will come into effect when the company has obtained delivery of new 60- and 108-passenger aircraft. With these (as yet unnamed) aircraft flying on new routes for which application has been made to C.A.B., the time from New York to Rio will be cut down from the present 66 hr. to 19 hr. 50 min., while the trip from Los Angeles to Buenos Aires will be cut from 134 hr. 30 min. to 31 hr. 15 min.—the almost fantastic saving of over 103 hr. flying time. • Although not divulged by Mr. Trippe, the new aircraft to be used are believed to be the Lockheed Constellation and the Douglas DC-7, OI which Pan American is reported to have at least 25 on order. Alternatively, the 108-seater might prove to be the new Lockheed Constitution, the existence oi which has only recently been disclosed. The Handley Page Hermes Great Britain's New Fully Pressurised Commercial Aircraft Pan American Announces Drastic Passenger Fare Cuts on Latin-American Routes
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