Looks like Alex Frater owes me a beer. Again
OK, back to old airline questions. Now I have here a yellowing pre-war July 1939 ABC Airline Guide, precursor of the OAG and (obviously) ABC World Airways. They will be oddball questions, but we can have some fun with guesses.
1. London to Glasgow. 3 flights a day. Fastest with 2 stops (3 ½ hours), slowest with 5 stops (4 ½ hours). Airline, aircraft, stops, where did it leave from in London, and a real guess, what was the round trip fare ?
2. London to Aberdeen, one flight a day (southbound in the morning, back in the afternoon) by a different airline to the Glasgow flight with 3 different stops. Airline, aircraft type and stops ?
3. Nowadays it’s well known among us lot that the shortest flight in the world is by a Britten-Norman Islander of Loganair in the Orkney Islands in Scotland, Westray to Papa Westray, 2½ miles (less than the length of Heathrow runways) across open sea. In 1939 there wasn’t a strip on Papa Westray, but there was on Westray, and there was a daily flight to Kirkwall, the main Orkney town, just like nowadays. Airline and aircraft in 1939 ?
4. There’s a daily Italian flight from London to Turin (that was quite a haul for those days), Milan and Venice. Airline and aircraft ?
5. There’s another daily flight at 2 pm from London to Basle and Zurich n Switzerland. Airline and aircraft type – and who actually assembled the aircraft ? And a final question, when did you last see one ?
6. There’s a service between two London airports (yes, really), although the timetable was apparently made up on the day. You can go one way, and come back on the bus (I read once of someone who used to take their bicycle on board, to ride back !). Which two airports ?
7. Finally, there’s a night mail service from London at 10 pm to Cologne, Hanover and Berlin, passing the opposite flight which arrives into London at 5.25 in the morning. Very precise. It’s surprising there was sufficient air mail to justify this, but there you go. Who operated this, what aircraft, and why did it have such a large flight crew ?
8. The first air service (also air mail) from Britain to the USA starts during this 1939 timetable. There are two separate and competing airlines. Who was first westbound, where did it leave from in the UK, and why was that point chosen ?