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Aviation History
1945
1945 - 2179.PDF
FLIGHT NOVEMBER IST, 1945 CIVIL AVIATION British South American Plans Shipping Interests Preparing for Unsubsidised Operation with Lancastrians THE idea of operating a British air service to South Americahas always been an attractive one, and plans to this end have been made more than once It may be remembered thatBritish Airways, in 1938, were ready to proceed with such ser- vice had permission been obtained and conditions been suitable,and as long ago as 1919 the Royal Mail Lines were taking an interest in such a project. More recently a number of shipping companies, five in all,have combined with the idea of running an unsubsidised service to Buenos Aires and elsewhere in South America. Recentlyrenamed British South American Airways, this concern is now almost ready to begin operations and these will be started assoon as possible after the publication of the Government White Paper, which is expected on November ist Aircraft have beenpurchased, crews have been collected and are being trained, and the general organisation has been provisionally completed. Until such time as Avro Tudor Us are available, B.S.A.A.will use Lancasters, which will be converted by the manufac- turers into the equivalent of Lancastrians and will have apassenger capacity of twelve. Not unnaturally, since the general manager is Air Vice-Marshal D. C. T. Bennett, theinitial crews have been largely or completely made up from released or about-to-be-released members of the R.A.F. Path-finder Force, and these crews are now undergoing intensive navigation and other retraining to suit them for a new kind ofoperational flying. The services of one of the more experienced airline pilots, Capt. Gordon Store, has been obtained to lookafter the operations generally, while the selected personnel for equipment and maintenance organisation are largely composedof ex-Service officers. The pseudo-Lancastrians, if so thev can be described, areexpected to cruise at 235 m.p.b. and will make the Hurn- Lisbon-Bathurst-Natal-'Rio de Janeiro-Montevideo-Buenos Airesrun in a flying time of 35 hours. Decisions have not yet been readhed in the matter of frequency oi service or in the actualoverall time for the scheduled runs, since everything will naturally depend on the degree of assistance and organisationobtainable at the various stopping points. Following the Pan-American announcement of their proposed Atlantic fares, it is interesting to learn that those for the British South American Airways services are comparably (if acci- dentally) low for such a considerable journey. The single fare from this country to the Argentine will be £155—2. figure which has been worked out on an estimated all-in operating cost ot 4jd. a passenger statute mile. The company does not neces- sarily consider that these fares, with initial service frequency, will permit a profit, handsome or otherwise, to be made, but the figure has, as far as possible, been worked out on known operational costs. B.S.A.A. is, in itself, merely an airline-operating concern, and the shipping interests involved are not proposing to inter- fere at all with the practical side of the organisation. Never- theless, the fact that these interests already have a thorough organisation for traffic and necessary locaj "diplomacy" pur- poses will help to keep the all-in operating cost down and enable the operations to be started without the necessity for the preliminary staffing and organisation of traffic offices on the route. By way of record, it may be again noted here that the shipping companies concerned in this venture are: Royal Mail Lines, Blue Star Line, Pacific Steam Navigation, Booth Steam- ship and Lamport and Holt Line, with Mr. W. J. Booth as the chairman of the company. For the moment Buenos Aires will be the final South Ameri- can terminal, but it is hoped that extensions may duly be made to other South American centres. At the time of writing, the B.O.A.C. Lancastrian carrying, amongst others, two repre- sentatives of B.S.A.A., has reached Lima, in Peru ANSONS FOR R.A.S.P ENDING the delivery of their Vickers Vikings, the first of which should be available early next year. Railway Air Services have ordered a number of 7-9-passenger civil Ansons, or Avro XIXs, for their internal routes. Following experi- mental runs with this type, R.A.S. have decided, when these aircraft are delivered early this month, to use them on the London-Belfast and Glasgow-Belfast routes. The former ser- vice will then be-operated non-stop in a flying time of little over two hours. The Vikings were presumably ordered at least partly on the assumption that Railway Air Services' routes will be duly expanded, following the plans laid by the last Government, to REALLY UNCONVENTIONAL : The full meaning of the Douglas DC.8 project, in terms of possible technical difficulties, can be appreciated with the help of these drawings. The two Allison engines will be installed behind the control cabin, and the contra-rotating air- screws in the tail will be driven through a long series of shafts and universal joints. Many aerodynamic and engineering problems will obviously need to be solved before the aircraft can be ready for production. 11 lo include a European network. The first Vikings to be delivered will take the place of the Ansons on the non-stop internal services. EUROPEAN BUILD-UPT HE return to normal conditions is again foreshadowed by the opening of a S.A.B.E.N.A. special service between Brussels and London, the first of which duly arrived at Croydon last week, earning the Belgian Minister of Communications, M. Rongvaux. Lockheed Lodestars will be used. The last regular S.A.B.E.N.A. service between Belgium and this country was that to Shoreham on May 9, 1940, the eve of the invasion of the Low Countries. During the same week, as already recorded, Air France opened their London-Paris service, wnne Swedish A.B. Aero-transport already operates between Croydon, Gotesborg and Stockholm, Danish D.D.L. between BJackbushe (Hampshire) and Copen- en, and Swissair betw«eu Croydon "I jG-^i'.'K O £ y^an<* Zurich. The passengers on ail these ±*TI F*v ^^"^^^JT "semi-civil" services pass through th'- ^ -Pv—^X B.O.A.C. traffic centre at Victoria which is consequently very much busier in ap- pearance than the pessimistic general view of civil aviation might have led one to expect. Altogether something lilt' 1,800 passengers are handled every week by Always House. TRANS-CANADA ''TRANS-CANADA AIRLINES J- wjrlearu, taken d-elivery of tf D.C^s, and plan ?±o use bought from the UWtejQS Supply Bsard, for tli«rT$ron5j^yW YorK /un^jjS^eTjVri&jeA fciveioeen qpfcredfrom\the n^aiViJactureK^^ ^' 1 Acdprdingsto a recenr^eptwif, well overtolf the total revenue^-T.C.A. is now supplied by passflrfffer traffic. Thisrevenue has climbed from 35 per cent, of
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