FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1958
1958 - 0548.PDF
564 FLIGHT, 25 April 1958 Starliner to Tokyo AIR FRANCE INAUGURATES ITS "ROUTE POLAIRE" TO THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN By RONALD BARKER J (" Flight " photographs by the Author) An Air France news-sheet, "La Ligne Transpolaire" was circulated during the flight—a 10 a.m. photograph, with darkness outside. TIME and tide used to wait for no man. But whereas shippinglines still are the servants of tide, ambitious airlines are play-ing old Harry with time. Sometimes it has to slow down and wait for man to catch up with it, and sometimes he cracks on at sucha pace that it has to take a short cut to keep up with him. However, neither man nor time can really afford to give the other the slipentirely, and would-be passengers over the polar routes have nothing to worry about on this score. After all, if you divide your life intolumps of 24 hours and calculate on your return home how many of those you have spent on your voyage, you cannot get home on thewrong day. And if you decide to remain in the East after crossing the Date Line, the sudden change of an intangible date will notaffect your metabolism! This jolly game was introduced last year, on a commercial scale,by S.A.S. with their flight over the polar regions from Copenhagen to Tokyo, via Anchorage in Alaska; now Air France, followingdelivery of all their new fleet of long-range Super Constellation L.I 649As, have been able to follow suit from Paris. Until B.O.A.C.introduces its Comet 4s on the Far East route, this new Air France service will be advertised as the fastest commercial link betweenEurope and Japan. With Air France you set off in evening darkness (if it's earlyApril) at about 7.30 p.m. (1930 G.M.T.), watch the following day's sun rise twice and set once, and lose a day in the calendar beforearriving in Japan after about 30 hours' flying time: and, as the last dawn had cracked for you some 13 hours earlier, it's somewhatdisturbing to find that you have reached Tokyo at 11.30 a.m. On the April 10 inaugural flight from Paris a distinguished pas-senger list included Air France's administrative president, M. Max Hymans; M. Gaston Monnerville, President du Conseil de laRepublique, and other eminent French politicians. Journalists from France, Britain, America, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Belgiumalso were on board. Our small party from the U.K. was escorted to Paris via an AirFrance Super G Constellation by David Bamford, public relations officer of A.F.'s U.K. organization. His father has, of course, beenits general manager since the early 'thirties. At Orly there was an informal send-off party before we were shepherded into F-BHBTFrontenac, the latest and last of the company's fleet of ten L. 1649As. This aircraft had, in fact, been collected from Burbank only abouta month previously by Commandant P. Wintersdorff, who cap- tained our crew on the second leg of the journey—that is, fromAnchorage in Alaska to Tokyo. For this special flight the seating layout allowed everyone anabundance of space. There were 32 "Sky-lounges" (jauteuils- couchettes, the French call them) with retractable leg-rests arrangedin pairs either side of the gangway in the main cabin, between the galley and the next bulkhead forward; 12 between that bulkhead(which contains the two toilets) and the crew's quarters. Aft of the galley were two double bunks topped by two singles, for theV.V.I.P.S on board. On the later commercial flights there will be 34 tourist seats, 12first-class Sky-lounges and eight Pullman berths. As with Air France Super Gs on other routes, the seats are trimmed in cloth ofShocking Pink—perhaps geranium pink sounds a little kinder, for it's a cheerful yet restful shade. Their sponge-rubber cushions andsquabs are very comfortably profiled. Carpeting and seat-backs are in a sober grey, and the upper half of the cabin is trimmed in mattplastic material with a grey-and-white canvas print. The curtains are a gay, Picasso-like riot of pattern and colour. There wasn't much fuss about getting our 70-ton liner airborne,despite its 8,170 Imp. gallon fuel load—which gives it a full range F-BHBT "Frontenac" on the Anchorage tarmac soon after daybreak, as seen through the control tower windows. of over 6,000 miles. On take-off and for the first few minutes of thesubsequent climb, vivid pale-blue flame licked from the twin exhaust-effluxes of the Wright Turbo-Compound R-3350 EA2s—the lower outlets from the engine cylinders, the upper from the triple exhaust turbines. Soon the flame faded to salmon pink as the mixture was weakenedand the engine speed cut, and thenceforth only a ring in the turbine outlet glowed red in the night. Cruising initially at 240 knots andabout 9,000ft, we headed north over Belgium, then parallel with the East Anglian coastline and east of the Shetlands. We had been reassured beforehand about the emergency equip-ment aboard—dinghies, tents, survival suits, plenty of concentrated foods, transmitters, stoves, rockets and smoke generators, torches,sun-glasses, and even a hunting-knife and a triple-bore rifle for potting at polar bears. Now a bilingual steward demonstrated life-jacket procedure; if we were dropped into the sea, we should be both phosphorescent and shark-proof. Engine and propeller noise is quite subdued in most parts of thislargest member of the Constellation family. The inboard motors are farther outboard than on the smaller craft, to use an Irishism;the huge, three-bladed props are geared down more, and there is added sound-damping in the fuselage. Only in those parts of thecabin nearest the blade-tips—in particular, the toilets, so that one is not inclined to stay in them longer than is necessary—is thenoise and vibration at all oppressive. Our senses had already accustomed themselves to the hum andvery slight movement of our temporary caravan when Air France began to serve their evening delights for the table. First, a widechoice of aperitifs; then, lubricated liberally with champagne and table wines, came a Caviar de Beluga with a fresh tang of the sea,cold turbot with salad, lamb chops with haricot verts, cheeses, petits fours, ice-cream (just about as we crossed the Arctic CircleN.E. of Iceland), fresh fruit, coffee and brandy. This light repast finished at about 0030 G.M.T. on the 11th. It should have put everyone soundly to sleep for many hours, yetat 0220 G.M.T. I woke to see a bright and decorative sky to the N.E.—all the spectral shades over a black and empty sea. Was thisa sunrise without a sun, or a sunset, or the aurora borealis? Or even
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
