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Mr & Mrs Thomas do Europe, 1927

Ralf Roggeveen said:
Thanks, Nigel - we will also try to keep to your wise (Spartan?) advice to hold the high ground!


...towards Strasbourg.

Successfully made it in rather less than the predicted 3 hours in the Jabiru, easily spotting the nice (unlikely) concrete runway at Entzheim which stood out clearly in the snow.
...
Click to expand...



Hi Ralf,

the period airfield for Strasbourg would be Aerodrome de Polygone, about 4 km south of the city center. Entzheim was built only after WWII.

Best regards,
Volker
 
Volker Böhme said:
Hi Ralf,

the period airfield for Strasbourg would be Aerodrome de Polygone, about 4 km south of the city center. Entzheim was built only after WWII.

Best regards,
Volker
Click to expand...

That's what I thought, Volker, but Lowell Thomas' 1928 book European Skyways does say: 'Arriving at Entzheim we found the aerodrome lit up by flashing boundary lights, lights from the open hangars, and a huge moveable searchlight on wheels. A four-engined Jabiru monoplane with its enormous thick overhead cantilever wing was "on the line," fire shooting from her exhausts.' (p.129)

However, I admit that that's for the next stage to Zurich, so they may have arrived at Polygone, then driven over to Entzheim. You will also note that, despite my recently vowing never to fly in the dark in the 1920s again, they took an early experimental night flight (Coming to your PC soon)... :rolleyes:
 
Propliner Flyer Magazine

Before turning to that, here's a wonderful New Year's present to share: Propliner Flyer Magazine

This has been created by Johan Dees and is most excellent if you're into Retro fs flying. Quite apart from fantastic contemporary airline ads, and ads from the '50s and '60s that just reference flying, there are several great articles. These include one to upgrade weather in fs9 and make your propliner shake about in the wind more realistically. Might have a go at that some day, since I've often thought there was room for improvement. He has also previewed FLIGHT (not the magazine, the new Microsoft flying game) and says it's a complete waste of time as a simulator; as I said, just a 'flying game' and not even much of an improvement on FSX in terms of graphics. And of course they've dumbed it all down to sell more units. Anyway, do read what JD has to say about it, confirms what you may well have already suspected.

There is also an fs humour page including the line: Reality is a hobby for getting away from flight simming (or something like that) - I wish I'd thought of that gag!

Hope the link works, highly recommended.:salute::salute: :salute::salute::salute:
 
Time to do that night flight to Basel. Anyone else had the disconcerting experience of trying in vain to find Basle Airport in the fs9 drop down menu under Switzerland, only to finally discover that it's in France?!? The modern airport is LFSB Bale-Mulhouse, jointly-run by the two countries, but on the French side of the border. Is this situation unique on the planet? Having your airport in another country?

It probably wasn't the case in 1927; Later, when leaving, Mr Thomas mentions that 'Basle flying-field is on the edge of the Rhine, so near that in taking off an aeroplane might quickly be transformed into a submarine.' (p.142 ha, ha). I've used the modern, default airport site in France, but we can now accurately go in the Jabiru (if you ignore its Danish registration again) and we can leave at 3 o'clock in the morning as Lowell and the long-suffering Mirabella Thomas did...

View attachment 55794

Here's a map to show the next few stopovers they made on their trip east:

View attachment 55795

France - Switzerland - Austria - Germany - Austria again. This is a sensible way to avoid the worst of the mountains, though we should see them off our starboard side, at least in the daytime.

View attachment 55796

I was glad to have practiced in that Jabiru in daylight on the previous leg...

View attachment 55797

As you can see, it was pretty dark, though at least those Alps were safely distant. (The lights of Strasbourg in the picture above).

View attachment 55798

He calls his chapter on this bit 'A night flight up the Rhine', and that's exactly what it was, effectively travelling due south and following the great river. Interestingly enough, after about half an hour, they actually saw 'the headlight of the northbound Jabiru' (p.131) coming towards them. There was a bit of GW3 AI flying around, but unfortunately none of them came close enough to replicate that - and I had plenty of other things to think about.

View attachment 55799

Main anxiety was the knowledge that the airfield would NOT be clearly lit up in this simulation...

View attachment 55800

But my luck held because one of the AIs (a Ryan I believe) landed there just ahead of me, so I followed him in.

View attachment 55801

Phew, made it in one piece!
 
Hi,

the Airport at Basel-Mulhouse was constructed only afterr WWII (I am pretty sure about that), the original site was at Basel-Birsfelden (Sternenfeld) east of the town's center. Innsbruck is still at the origial location, I think. Munich's location prior to Riem was at Oberwiesenfeld, converted to the 1972 Olympic park. Viennas airport was at Aspern (LOWA), but that closed in the 70's, too, when a crosswind runway was contructed at Schwechat.

Best regards,
Volker
 
Hi Ralf,

had a thorough look again at the Strasbourg site, and I have to admit that I couldn't find anything entirely convincing for or against Enzheim/Polygon. Didn't have much time to look, though. I'm quite sure about Basel, Munich and Vienna, though.

Best regards,
Volker
 
Sorry Kelly, didn't notice your question, I was so quick to correct Volker! Good luck with the Jabiru - I explained its name a bit earlier on in the story.

Will try to use historic airport sites if humanly possible, Volker - any information is useful. There was nothing in GW3/fs9 near enough to Basel to substitute for the modern Bale-Mulhouse, however. Next stop Zurich and there'll be some nice German aircraft coming up soon...
 
Hi,

try Zürich-Dübendorf, the recently closed military airbase. Kloten was yet another one of the arports built after WWII.

Best regards,
Volker
 
I'm afraid it was too late and I'd already flown to the site of the modern airport (LSZH). The Thomases appear to have gone in a Swiss-registered Junkers of some kind (probably an Ad Astra G.23), but I decided to use a Swiss-registered Dutch aircraft...

Switzerland had three air companies in 1919: Aero-Gesellschaft Comte, Mittelholzer & Co. Tourisme SA and Frick & Co. The last of these changed its name to Ad Astra AG by the end of that year. This is the Fokker F.VIIa of their rival, Balair (Basler Luftverkehrs AG) which was formed in 1925:

View attachment 55987

The two were, of course, merged into Schweizerische Luftverkehr AG, the famous Swissair in 1931.

View attachment 55988

This airplane CH-157 was registered with Balair in April 1927, so may well have been there in Basel later that year when the Thomases showed up.

View attachment 55989

It remained as CH-157 with Swissair in '31, getting the new style registration HB-LBO in 1934.

View attachment 55990

It actually stayed in service until 1950 before a well-earned retirement to the Verkehrhaus Museum in Luzern.

View attachment 55991

This flight was straightforward enough using the radio and IFR, although they sent us round by a very different route from the original flightplan:

View attachment 55992

Never mind, it's always best to put your trust in ATC when you've got them to help...

View attachment 55993

This part of northern Switzerland, the Aargau region, is still nice and flat for rickety old aeroplanes. The Rhine turns east at Basel and marks the border with Germany.

View attachment 55994

(Yes, I know it really turns NORTH at Basel, but you see what I mean when we're travelling UP it).
 
For the next stretch, due west across the border into Austria, Mr Thomas mentions 'our Junkers monoplane'. I think this was probably an F.13, but sadly there isn't any fs version of that important aircraft. We do, however, have Ralf Kreibich's beautiful W.33 which makes a perfect stand-in:

View attachment 56457

The knob to the left of the throttle is Mixture Control, important when you're flying in this period:

View attachment 56458

No room for any radio, so you'll have to navigate for yourself in one of these.

View attachment 56459

Thomas pads it out with a lot of guff about Hannibal crossing the Alps, etc., though that was much further south and of course he was aiming for Italy.

View attachment 56460

On our left is Lake Constance, the Bodensee in German. He briefly mentions that a place very important in 1920s aviation lies over the other side of the lake in Wurtemberg, the far south of Germany...

View attachment 56461

This is Friedrichshafen, home of the fabled Zeppelin!

View attachment 56462

But Lowell Thomas does not dwell on Zeps. Being very pro-British, he may well have not wanted to offend readers who would still have thought of them as BABY-KILLERS...

View attachment 56463

...they flew on.
 
Zeptime

No such qualms for us, however, safe behind our home computers in the following Century. We will nip over the lake and take a quick look at Bill & Lynn Lyons' fantastically brilliant* LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin:

View attachment 56464

This remains far & away the finest airship simulation you can get, and of course it's fully compatible with Golden Wings.

View attachment 56465

I've sometimes thought about doing a Round the World flight with it, BUT...

View attachment 56466

...though she's almost therapeutic to fly, once you get the hang of it, it's very, very slow.

View attachment 56467

Also, a lot of the real 1929 RTW was not only done at a crawl, but over mind-bogglingly boring ocean and a great deal of Mongolian and Siberian tundra.

View attachment 56468

Furthermore, by its very nature, the airship has hardly any (and extremely far flung!) stopovers: Lakehurst - Friedrichshafen - Tokyo - Los Angeles - back to Lakehurst.

View attachment 56469

*(Yes, I like it).

 
Ralf Roggeveen said:
... 'our Junkers monoplane'...
Click to expand...

Hi,

I had to look it up first, but Junkes actually did build a biplane type, the J4 in 1917. On the other hand, Imperial Airways barely used any monoplanes before the mid-30's. The Atalanta probably was the first relevant domestic type, and IA only started for real with modern aircraft when it introduced the Empire Flying Boat in 1936.

Nikko, thanks for the link, I was about to look it up myself. Fine planes, these, and a fine site. Quite a few interesting aircraft.

Best regards,
Volker
 
Thanks, gentlemen - that'll keep me busy and maybe take the Thomases some of the way across the Balkans. Never found the Classic Wings F.13 before. Junkers biplane would be interesting to see, though I think he only said 'monoplane' because they were less well-known at the time. Herr Doktor Ing. Junkers was convinced that corrugated aeroplanes were best - apparently it was noticed that Ju56s flew BETTER in Russia when they were made more aerodynamic by icing over -!

A few more screenies of the Graf to make up for Lowell not saying much about the real thing when they came so close to it:

View attachment 56556

Since life's too short for puttering over the world's great oceans, the Lyons' have thoughtfully provided Saved Flights that will take you straight to the RTW stopovers (+ Rio in Brazil above):

View attachment 56557

Approaching NYC.

View attachment 56558

Lakehurst, with The United States Navy At Home.

View attachment 56559

The (nearly finished) Golden Gate Bridge.

View attachment 56560

Back over Lake Constance.

View attachment 56561

Dropping ballast to gain height.
 
OK, that's enough about airships; let's get the Thomases in their Junkers over the Swiss/Austrian border:

View attachment 56843

We are heading for the famous Tirol, crossing the (good skiing) Lechtaler Alpen - the (good climbing) Berner Alpen to the south are much higher.

View attachment 56844

One of your most useful instruments on a flight like this is the simple clock...

View attachment 56845

...If we've been flying in this direction at that speed for half an hour, then it must be down there somewhere up ahead...

View attachment 56846

(Usually works).

View attachment 56847

In this case I'd worked out that we needed to get over - or round - the mountains and fly down the valley of the Inn till we spotted the town.

View attachment 56848

This reminds me of a good New Yorker cartoon I saw many years ago and never forgot. There's a whole crowd of people staring expectantly towards a mountain. A little man right at the back is speaking to one worried-looking member of the crowd. He's saying:
 
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