THE CHINA' MAIL, FEBRUARY 4, 1989
PASSENGERS LINE UP FOR FIRST TRANS- ATLANTIC FLIGHT
This summer, probably on June 1, development of civil aviation and he Imperial Airways are starting a re- has never for a moment wavered in gular air service to Canada and possi- his convicton that "the future is in bly the United States. Perhaps they the air." The writer has seen in Sir will carry passengers and perhaps they Walter's album at home a clipping will not. The chances are chat they from Fry's magazine for April 1910, will want to run an experimental ser- of an article, in which the leading vice with mails only for at least a aeronautical experts of the day discuss, year, before they publish timetablés at a sort of round table conference, and fares, and undertake to carry the possibility of regular services by passengers. Their policy is "safe air across the, North Atlantic. Some
of them-one a very famous happily still with us-dismissed the iden as a mere pipe-dream, that would it might happen eventually, "but cer- never, never be realised; others said tainly not in the life-time of anyone alive to-day (1910)," and only a few realised that the aeroplane had come to stay and foresaw the development that has actually taken place.
and sure."
However, if they did decide to start this year, they would not have far to look for passengers to fill their cabins. Bookings have been coming in since 1935 and there are already a hundred
· names on the waiting list. - Some of those who have booked seats are going to be disappointed, but that can't very well be helped. They all want to be "in" on the first trans-Atlantic passen- ger flight and there simply isn't going to be room for them all, Imperial Airways will do their best, of course, but they would rather take a few at a time and be sure of getting them to the other side than take the whole lot all at once and get them a little way across and then have to bring them back again.
FIRST-FLIGHTERS
man,
His
One of these was Sir Walter. contribution to the discussion was a daring assertion that not only were trans-Atlantic air services inevitable, but the time was not far distant when commercial aeroplanes would be making trips around the world as re- gularly as horse-buses around Piccadi!- ly Circus.
MADE TO MEASURE PLANE
years
Sir Walter has never made a first This waiting-list, by the way, re- flight before, but he insists on making veals an interesting fact about people this one and he saw to it that his name who fly for pleasure. Apparently was near to the top of the list by aviation has its habitual "first-making his booking over three flighters," equivalent to the first- ago. He says. incidentally, that he nighters of the theatrical world. As soon as they hear that a new service is starting or a new route being opened up, these good people grab the telephone, call the booking office and have their names put down on the list--not because they particularly want to go to the place at the other end of the route, but because they like making first flights, collect them as other people collect old books and new autographs.
Not all the people who have booked seats for Imperial Airways first trans- Atlantic passenger flight belong to this category, but a good many of them do. Sir Walter Windham, for instance, does not. Mrs. Clara Adams does.
Sir Walter Windham has several reasons for going.. For one thing he really wants to go to Canada, for an- other he has never travelled on. an Imperial flying-boat and thinks it's high, time he did; and for another he has been interested in trans-Atlantic air travel for thirty years or more.
BACK TO 1908
That takes us back to 1908. Flying then was very much in its infancy. The Wright brothers had succeeded in getting off the ground and staying in the air for a little while; Bleriot had not yet astonished the world by flying from one side of the English Channel to the other, and only a handful of people believed that the aeroplane had any serious commercial possibilities.
Among that handful was Sir Walter Windham. He believed in aviation
from the start. In 1909 he organised, in India, the first air mail service in the world; in 1911 he started the first air mail in the British Isles and 'in between the two he helped to organise Bleriot's famous flight across the Eng- lish Channel, donated the
gold cup which Bleriot won, and when the only other competitor crashed, helped to fish the unlucky Latham out of the Channel.
All his long and active life Sir Walter has devoted his energies to the
"NIKS acc
“A Sobranteed Lure
Fol Hong Kong: Fööf-
was unable to fly in the planès which carried the first mails in India and England because he was too heavy, and the earliest aircraft were not powerful enough to lift him off the ground. He did not succeed in getting into the air himself until he had an aeroplane constructed accor- ding to his own design, made to. measure, as it were.
Mrs. Clara Adams, on the other hand, is frankly and cheerfully a con- firmed "first-flighter" and "maiden voyager." She has made several first flights in the U.S.A., was on the maiden voyage of the Queen Mary and is grimly determined to be on the first Atlantic flight. She is taking her two children with her to give them a good start on their careers as "first- flighters."
On the waiting list are several other pioneers of civil aviation who, like Sir Walter, have grown up with the in-. dustry and shared its fortunes good and bad; a few politicians, including an American ambassador; two or three Canadian business men, several journalists, a famous social service novelist; a university professor who worker; Bruce Grahame, the English
takes an "academic interest in the
R.A.F.
phenomenon of flight," some His Majesty's Government. The others officers and other representatives of are all conflirmed globe-trotters and first-flighters,
SAFE AND SURE
About eighty have definitely booked their seats, twenty others have made arrangements provisionally. No money has been accepted,
of course, because no date has yet been an- nounced for the inauguration of the service, and such details as fares and timetables have not yet been even ten-
tatively determined.
·Co-
Meanwhile Imperial Airways are quietly and constantly at. work. ordinating their reports, perfecting their aircraft, training their crews, getting their ground organisation-es- pecially radio and meteorological equipment-in shape, ready for the inauguration when the time is ripe. Nothing premature, nothing spec- tacular will be attempted. "Safe and |\sure” -is- their. motto. Neither oom- petition from abroad nor impatience at home will induce them to carry a single passenger across the Atlantic-until in ||the light of their long and uniquo ex- perience they are convinced that it is in the best interests of everybody con- cerned that they should do so.
The service, when inaugurated, will connect at Montreal with Trans- Canada Air Lines' service to Van- couver, forming with Imperial Air- ways' present service to Now Zealand a route of British airways nearly '20,- 000 miles long, easily the longest com- mercial route of any kind in the world.
Page
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