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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 0046.PDF
46 FLIGHT AEROFLOT AND MINHAIDUY . . . North Korea, all Aeroflot international services have been operatedfor some time by Il-12s and are now being taken over by Il-14s. Recent information concerning passenger fares on domesticroutes is that considerable reductions are now being made, although these will be smaller on trunk routes than on local ser-vices. Moreover, a round-trip discount of 10 per cent is to be introduced for the first time, return fares having previously beendouble the single. The latest fares lists available at the time of writing do not reflect these changes, but it is noted that only onerate is now quoted for domestic flights, whereas for many years there were both first- and second-class fares, relating to soft andhard seats respectively. Indeed, it is believed that Aeroflot was the first airline to carry passengers of two classes in one aircraft. All international services into Moscow and a large number ofdomestic flights, including those operated by Tu-104s, use Vnukovo Airport, the remaining lines operating to and fromBykovo; it is believed that these two airports now handle all Moscow's scheduled flights. Vnukovo is reached from SverdlovaSquare by a bus service operating from five in the morning until 45 min after midnight; the usual time to be allowed for thejourney and for formalities at the airport is a little over two hours. To Bykovo electric trains operate from the Kazanshogo Stationthroughout most of the day and night, the only break being from 0135 to 0515. It is clear, therefore, that both Moscow airportsare fully equipped for night operation as, indeed, are those serv- ing the principal cities throughout the U.S.S.R.; this is revealed bythe scheduled times of arrival at and departure from these places. The arrangements for pool services with Finnair and S.A.S.also involve interline agreements for through bookings from any point on the network of one carrier to any point on the other'ssystem. Aeroflot has recently concluded a number of further interline agreements with Western carriers and the following areknown to have such arrangements with Aeroflot: Air France, Air India International, B.E.A., Czechoslovak Airlines, Finnair, Yugo-slav Airlines, K.LJV1., Polish Airlines, Hungarian Airlines, Minhaiduy, Pan-American, Sabena, S.A.S., Swissair, BulgarianAirlines, Roumanian Airlines and Ukamps. Special mention should be made of the Air France/Aeroflotservice Paris-Prague-Moscow, for this connection was achieved by careful co-ordination of schedules to offer one-day travelbetween Paris and Moscow in both directions. The introduction of the Tu-104 has brought about a cut in the journey time makingit the fastest link between Western Europe and Moscow. It has been reported that the Tu-104 will eventually continue eastwardfrom Moscow to Novosibirsk to connect there with flights to Peking, thus providing a very rapid through service to China. Asa result of the Aeroflot agreement with Air India International it is possible to book through from Russian cities via Kabul topoints in Southeast Asia and Australia. It may be that, as suitable competitive aircraft become availableto the Russian carrier, further reciprocal agreements with Western carriers on the lines of these with Finnair and S.A.S. will benegotiated. The Tu-104 would appear to fill the bill and we may see these aircraft flying regularly to London, Paris, Amsterdam,Brussels and other Western European capitals. Hitherto the Russians have been not unnaturally reluctant to operate suchreciprocal routes with aircraft inferior to those available to their competing partners. The international routes of Minhaiduy to Alma-Ata and Irkutskin co-operation with Aeroflot have already been described. Other routes to points outside China are a weekly service flown withII-14s from Peking via Kunming (night stop) to Mandalay and Rangoon and weekly Li-2 flights from Canton via Nanning toHanoi in North Vietnam. The Burma service provides excellent connections in both directions at Rangoon with B.O.A.C. flightson their Europe-Far East route as well as with the services of other carriers. Unconfirmed reports suggest that there may nowalso be a line from Peking to Lhasa, capital of Tibet, probably flown via Chungking. The Chinese domestic network is now being developed; prin-cipal routes include four-times-weekly services between Peking and Canton via Chengchow and Wuhan (Hankow) and betweenPeking and Shanghai via Hsuchow and Nanking; eight weekly flights between Peking and Chungking via Taiyuan and Sian,two of which continue to Kunming; and four weekly services between Peking and Lanchow via Taiyuan and Chengchow, con-tinuing after an over-night stop to Chuichuan (Suchow), Hami and Urumchi, where connections are made with flights to othercities in Sinkian. In addition to several other local services there are also flightsfour times weekly between Chungking and Shanghai and once weekly between Chungking and Canton, both via various inter-mediate points as well as the Northern route from Peking, with some flights operating via Tsientsin, to Shenyang (Mukden),Harbin and Tsitsihar. Aircraft employed on these lines are mainly Li-2s, although Il-12s and Il-14s are now making an appearanceon a few of the principal lines. The service at present touching the city of Hailar in NorthChina is the joint Aeroflot/Ukamps line between Chita and Pyong-Yang. The winter, 1956, edition of Minhaiduy's timetablecontains two new domestic routes; a twice-weekly service between Kweiyang and Chungking, where connections are made to andfrom Peking and other cities, and a weekly service from Urumchi to Sharasume in the far North of Sinkian province. It is rumouredthat a new international service to Japan may be opened shortly. The vast distances involved in travel in the U.S.S.R. and Chinaare favourable to the growth of air transport as the accepted means of transport; moreover, the fact that much of this huge area isvery sparsely populated militates against the development of good surface communications. Official comparative figures publishedby Aeroflot show clearly the immense saving in time achieved by air travel. From Moscow to Vladivostock the air journey occupiesan overall time of 40 hr 35 min compared with 220 hr 5 min by train; from Moscow to Irkutsk in Siberia the corresponding figuresare 19 hr 5 min (now 7 hr 10 min by Tu-104) and 119 hr 40 min; from Moscow to Adler (Sochi) the aeroplane takes 5 hr 15 minand the train 47 hr 19 min, whilst Tbilisi is reached in 8 hr by air (2i hr by Tu-104), the train requiring 68 hr 40 min. Tashkentis reached by air in 10 hr 40 min (Tu-104, 4 hr) and Alma-Ata in 14 hr 50 min, the corresponding train times being 94 hr 35 minand 118 hr 25 min. Even on the relatively short route between Moscow and Lenin-grad there is a substantial saving, for the aeroplane takes only 2 hr 35 min against the train's 10 hr 50 min; to Kiev the timesare 2\ hr and 24 hr 7 min respectively. The most spectacular difference of all is for the journey from Alma-Ata to Balkhash, onthe northern shore of the lake of the same name; the air journey takes a mere 1 hr 25 min, whereas the circuitous route involvedin surface travel requires no less than 138 hr ! It is small wonder, therefore, that the present very extensive air network hasdeveloped and is still steadily growing. Postscript: Since this article was written a once-weekly service hasbegun to operate from Prague to Peking via Moscow, Omsk and Irkutsk every Friday; the return flight (covering the same route) is on Sundays.It is now possible to fly from Peking to Prague by Aeroflot and connect at Prague with an Air France service to Paris all in the same day.Departure time from Peking is 0735 and arrival in Paris 2020 (both local time). Thus there are now three services weekly between Pragueand Moscow. A STORY—AND ITS SEQUEL (continued from page 41) parents and became a school teacher, again in Lancashire. It wasduring this period that he met and married my mother, Elizabeth Brierley. Speaking from memory, this was in 1887. Soon after hegave up teaching to become a journalist, and moved to London. "Because of his love of travel, he sought assignments which tookhim abroad. One of these was a trip round the world in 48 days, after the style of Jules Verne's story. This was quite an achievement because,at the time, the Trans-Siberian Railway was incomplete, so that part of the journey had to be done by sleigh. Another journey took him insearch of the source of the Amazon and on a third he became the first foreigner to gain entry to the French convict settlement at Noumea.On his last foreign assignment he went with Joseph Chamberlain to South Africa after the war. "It was in 1893, the year of my birth, that he was persuaded (I believeby Peter Keary) to try his hand as a novelist and Natasha: the Angel of the Revolution was the result. My Christian names, Alan Arnold, weretaken from two of the characters in this book. From then to his death 13 years later he wrote 37 books, all but three of which were, I believe,novels. I do not know what actually started his interest in night, but he was certainly acquainted with Maxim and was also caught up in the ballooning craze. I was told that he crossed the Channel on one flight. "He was a keen sailor and in 1901 (I think) he moved to Littlehampton,the better to indulge in this pastime. I often went with him on fishing expeditions and the like. "After a few years the declining popularity of his books compelledretrenchment, and we moved to Port Erin, Isle of Man, where he died in 1906. "There is no doubt that my father's vision and imagination touchedoff my own interest in flying and probably that of others as well. In retrospect, however, what strikes me most forcibly about the visionariesof the past is that the reality of today should have so far outstripped their wildest dreams (as they were thought to be at the time). "In Olga Romanoff the greatest flight speed that my father couldforesee for the year 2035 A.p., was 600 m.p.h. and now the world speed record stands at nearly twice that figure. Again, his most powerfulexplosives, which turned steel to powder, are insignificant compared with modern nuclear weapons. Finally, although Hertzian waves were alreadyknown, not one of the imaginative writers of the time had a glimmering of the way in which they were to transform communications."
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