FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1955
1955 - 1341.PDF
FLIGHT, 9 September 1955 455 THE LOFOTEN ROUTE Flying on One of the World's More Remote Airlines By C. B. H. BARFORD • <" WIDER0ES-LOFOTENROUTE IN Norway, the name Wider0e spells aviation. Two brothersof this name started the first civil flying company twenty-twoyears ago, using a Tiger Moth on floats and a pair of Wacos, with which they gave joy-rides and flying instruction. By the latethirties, three Stinson Reliants, a Bellanca and chartered Ju34 had been added, and these were employed in aerial surveying,taxi-work, and on the first scheduled passenger run, to Haugesund on the west coast. It was in a Reliant that one of the brothers lost his life whena wing gave way in the year 1936, but the other, Viggo, carried on; and in spite of a complete stoppage during five years ofGerman occupation, he has built up a very active business. After the war, land and sea communications were naturally in abad state, and the small floatplane became tremendously useful. It does not need much knowledge of Norway's terrain, with itstumbled mountains, its lakes, twisting fjords and myriad islands, to realize that such aircraft are particularly suitable hereabouts.Wider0e acquired some Noorduyn Norsemen on floats, Fairchild Argus, Me 108s, and a couple of North American Seabeeamphibians; and for a while he operated three Cub Coupes which somehow had been hidden away during the Occupation.At the present time the fleet includes one Cub, a Cornell, a Luscombe, and two Cessnas, which are used in air-taxi work andfor target-towing for the forces. There are three Oxfords for aerial survey and for newspaper runs to Kristiansund andStavanger. A Seabee is kept in Trondheim for ambulance and taxi service. Five Norsemen and a de Havilland Canada Otteron floats are used in the far North for ambulance work and for scheduled runs. One of these services is from Tromso, viaseveral stopping points, to Kirkenes on the Russian border, and the other goes from Narvik to Bodo via the Lofoten Islands. Bothconnect with S.A.S. lines from Oslo. The company's main base is at Oslo's Fornebu airport, wherethe tiny radio-less Luscombe seems to mingle happily in the circuit with S.A.S.'s DC-6Bs and B.E.A.'s Viscounts.On a Scandinavian flying trip last year I had fallen for the fascination of Norway's North, and particularly of the LofotenIslands, whose weird peaks, seen afar off standing straight up from the sea, have been likened to a disordered row of dog'steeth; so I did not hesitate when Mr. K. Friis-Baastad, Wider0e's (Left) S.A.S. terminal buildings at Bodo. Mr. J. Erensen, apprentice pilot of Wideroes, stands in the entrance. (Right) Airport staff (plus one taxi-driver) and terminal buildings at Narvik.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
