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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 1446.PDF
536 FLYING DOWN TO RIO FLIGHT . By J. de CROZE —modern Version: The Operations of Brazil's VARJG Airline Super Constellation on the VARIG Brazil-U.S. service at Congonhas Airport, Sao Paulo. FOR those of us who matured in the cinema hot-houses of the 'thirties, the phrase "flying downto Rio" may conjure up a phantasy of cumulo- nimbus clouds, gay and fatuous chatter, and mag-nificently improbable aeroplanes with a passenger list composed simply of Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers,an eighty-piece orchestra, and a host of chorus girls nonchalantly tap-dancing their way to Brazil on thewings of an unidentifiable aircraft. Again, it may bring to mind those persistent travellers to Rio—thebrilliantly blonde Alice Faye, the irrepressible Carmen Miranda with the entire merchandise of aCopocabana fruiterer atop her head, and the dashing "Latin," Cesar Romero. Alas, the entire population of South America nolonger turns out in extravagant costume to greet arri- vals at Santo Dumont airport with dances and perpetual carnaval.In this more sober era, Brazilians are extremely conscious of the fact that they have inherited a nation to build and that they are inthe process of doing it. The catchwords are build and develop—off with the old, on with the new. In such an atmosphere and in acountry the size of a continent but devoid of practically any surface transport, either rail or road, the obvious answer to one aspect of theproblem has been to use aviation in every possible manner. Not only to bring together the far-flung provinces, but—in the way thewagon-trains had done in the United States and the railways in Argentina in the nineteenth century—to bring population itselfand the means of its subsistence to the hitherto uninhabited interior. Only fifty years ago, with the exception of long-dead gold miningtowns and of the dying rubber-boom settlements of the Amazon, there were no settlements of any considerable size away from thecoastal fringe. Beyond, for 3,000 miles in a straight line, all was unexplored territory. Today, thanks largely to aviation, new in-land cities have already 100,000 inhabitants, like Goiania, or over 300,000, like Belo Horizonte; and the most remote outpost can bereached from Rio within a day. Most significant in this respect is the creation of the new capital of Brazil, Brasilia, almost in thegeographical centre of the country. The first domestic airline to be opened in Brazil was VARIG Viacao Aerea Rio Grandense). This year it celebrated its 30thbirthday, and is thus one of the world's oldest. It was founded in May 1927, in Porto Alegre, the capital of the important southBrazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, an agricultural area of temperate climate and hard-working Germanic and North Italiansettlers. There were no airstrips then where landplanes could operate to and from, though, fortunately, there was an immenselagoon, half the size of England, stretching from Porto Alegre to Pelotas, the state's second largest town, and to Rio Grande, itsmain harbour and meat-packing centre. But at that time the Kondor-Syndikat's Dornier Wai seaplane Atlantico, was makingsuccessful demonstration flights in Brazil; and the nine-passenger, twin-engined aircraft was bought by VARIG and duly registeredon page 1 of book 1 of Brazil's virgin Air Register. The Porto Alegre to Pelotas flight becoming the first scheduled Braziliandomestic run. By 1932 VARIG could change over to landplanes—JunkersF.13s, D.H. Dragons, and eventually Ju52s—using fields and other primitive runways to bring the scattered market towns withineasy reach of the capital for the first time, and to open areas of the interior where nothing but bullock-carts and canoes had everbeen seen before. In that year 1,500 miles of routes were created. Four years later, passenger, mail, and freight traffic had reachedsufficient proportions for the Porto Alegre to Pelotas run to become Santos Dumont Air- port, Rio de Janeiro. The tall buildings in the foreground occupy the former site of a mountain levelled to supply earth for con- structing the airport.
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