Aerial Milestones, Imperial Airways 1924 to 1939, Britain Contribution to Air Transport
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.พ. 2025
- Imperial Airways was the early British commercial long-range airline, operating from 1924 to 1939 and serving parts of Europe but principally the British Empire routes to South Africa, India and the Far East, including Malaya and Hong Kong.
Very interesting stuff! Never saw a Ju52 with British markings.
I have the original Ju-52 sales brochure and hand calculated conversions of wing span to British units. Long multiplication written out in pencil on the back of the brochure to a ridiculous number of s.f.
Take a look at the history behind "Musick Point" in Auckland.
The use of the "Three Speedbird" logo in the titles is interesting as the "Speedbird" is more often associated with Imperial`s successor organisation B.O.A.C and that organisations successor British Airways.
The Speedbird logo was designed for Imperial Airways by Theyre Lee-Elliott in 1932 and was used initially by Imperial on timetables etc in the triple-Speedbird form.
It was later applied to Imperial Airways aircraft - such as the De Havilland DH.91 Albatross and Short S.30 'Empire' flying boats - in 1938. As applied to Imperial's aircraft, the Speedbird was used in singular form.
Thus, the triple-Speedbird format was one of the earliest uses of the logo and its design was commissioned by and for Imperial long before the logo was retained by BOAC, some seven or eight years later.
I'm a BOAC 'brat', by the way: my father flew for BOAC for 25 years, after the Second World War. And then I became an airline pilot myself.
I love plane stuff ✈️🛩️🛫🛬
Hi. Britain lagged behind in the development of land based airliners because flying boats suited its empire routes. Being a naval power most of her important destinations were near harbours. This explains why America developed the land based airliner, and why Imperial Airways was reduced to flying Ju 52's to European cities. However the beautiful and modern (for the time) Short Canopus flying boat was right up there with the DC3 in looks. A derivative of it later became the Short Stirling bomber.
I just love the H.P. 42. Still in use in the late '30's, it was the only large passenger plane great granddad could drag off on his Edward Turner designed Triumph Tiger 100 motorbike. (HP 42 = 80 mph, T 100 = 100 mph). The HP 42 pilots must have had great sang-froid and stiff upper lip. I can only imagine how embarrassing it was for them in 1939 to park the huge fabric covered biplane at a modern airport and rub shoulders with DC 3, DC4, and Stratoliner captains. It wasn't the roaring engines that ruined their hearing, it was the muffled giggles. Great video, thanks for sharing. Cheers, P.R.
42 passengers in great comfort to the other side of the globe? I'd rather do that on a roomy HP 42 than a DC3, anyday. And a 100% safety record, too.
@@phaasch Hi. For long distances, give me a sleeper berth on a DST (DC3) any day. The four long distance HP42's were mainly for mail delivery to the empire, India in particular. KLM inaugurated a DC2 service to Batavia (Jakarta) in 1934 flying the route to India. From then on, the Royal Mail was more than twice as fast as the dear old HP 42. Lets be honest, we're comparing apples with oranges. The 42's perfect safety record is exceptional and shows the British government had learnt its bitter lesson from the R101 disaster. I flew in one of the 11,000 DC3's made a few years back. Like you, given a choice of a short trip on one or the other I'd choose the HP 42 with you. The DC3 was too much like "an ordinary airplane". We were even given a glass of "champers". Cheers, P.R.
@@philliprobinson7724 I never realised that sleeper berths were a thing, particularly on a DC3, but I guess that anything is possible. That does change the game, rather! True, even a comfortable seat on an HP 42 would start to chafe after a couple of days.
@@phaasch Hi phaasch. The DC3 was actually the DC2 mk 2. Called the "Douglas Sleeper Transport" it took 14 with bunks on overnight transcontinental U.S. routes but the bean-counters soon figured that if the bunks were converted to extra seats, it would take 24 people, in "sardine class". Thus was born the first commercial airliner to actually make a profit.
The H.P. 42 was built because the Air Ministry was highly impressed by Alcock and Whitten-Brown's first successful transatlantic flight in 1919. Their Converted Vickers Vimy WW1 bomber was a twin engined biplane and the conservative Air Ministry naturally wanted their mail carrier to India to be a biplane too, with a couple of extra engines for safety. It made sense at the time, they were spending taxpayer's money. Unlike Fokker & Ford (trimotor monoplanes) they were not about to get experimental. Better a "slow pony" than an untried "show pony" that breaks a leg. Anyway mate, happy landings. Cheers, P.R.
8 days to Australia. Fast.
Leave it to the brits to over complicate everything...planely it's not just the krouts that do that.
How so?