It's happened to you...

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Well, managed to get the Piaggio back to Ciampino and thought why not just have a little look round with Traffic Tools? A lot was happening there around 15.30 in the afternoon. This Hunting Clan Viscount was arriving from Heathrow for a start:

He overflew a smaller airport which I believe to be Fiumicino (LIRF):

Some nice GA down there:

The Clansman had his gear down ready for the landing:

He had his undercarriage ready a long time before I would. Might learn something from watching the AIs (they always seem to hit the centre line). Lots of other classics elegantly buzzing round there:

Another retro spotters' paradise in fact!

In case you're wondering about the Empress, don't worry, we'll go and have a closer look at some of those later. Ciampino ahead:

Nearly there...

...and he's down:

I have a feeling that we've left the Antonovs behind and are back in the Viscount-dominated skies of the Free World...

Artificial Intellegence is all very well, but me: I'm with Human Error (HE)!

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Oh yes, let's take a closer look at callsign Empress 502:

It's a Canadian Pacific Britannia flying from Lisbon to Rome. As for the Americans on the ground; a Pan Am DC-7:

And TWA have this pair of beauties in Ciampino at that hour:

Alitalia Viscounts everywhere, as seen earlier:

Then I watched this MEA one for a while:

Not only the skies above, but also the airport below, quite crowded at this time:

Dutch Electra just leaving there. Must try to do some work with MEA - maybe when they join the Jet Age and start flying Comet 4Cs in my favourite ("next") year, 1960?

Just love the livery and the way the airline always bounces back, however much everyone keeps blowing it up!

Saw a Lebanese movie called Caramel the other day and also discovered that Lebanese women are stunning...

...and they speak a sexy mixture of French and Arabic. Here's Nadine Labaki who directed and stars in that film. Stop looking at lovely Lebanese women and concentrate on plane spotting!

Time for a cold shower, Ralf! We'll be flying those Church-going Texan cheese-munchers back to Schiphol soon, though their adventures are not quite over yet, as long as you're not bored of this epic?

 

[tgibson]

Bored? Never!

A few minor things - I doubt that the small airport was Fiumicino (LIRF) - it was already pretty big by 1959. Airlines started moving over there soon after that. Also, the Alitalia "Viscount" is actually a CV-440 - the single piston engine on each wing gives that one away. Alitalia used both, for some reason.

Thanks for the trip so far,

Tom Gibson
Calclassic Propliner Page

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Realised it was a CV-440 just after posting, but no time to edit (and hoped someone would spot it); obviously a Viscount has more engines too. Will have to check the map about that other airport, Fiumicino was just a guess. Nor am I sure, from the lat/longitudes given, that those GAs really were there (whatever it's called), possibly at yet another airport in the Rome area - couldn't see them at Ciampino. Anyway, it was a very good time to be looking around there - they must have just woken up from their siesta. And thanks for your wonderful work on creating that Tom! :salute:

 

[tgibson]

You're certainly welcome, Ralf. I don't get much feedback about the AI propliners, so it often feels like I'm working in a vacuum. Thus you are a refreshing change from the usual.

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

We will get to see a lot of propliners on this stretch, from nations as varied as Belgium and Iran, Japan and Angola!

It's worth remembering that although this recreation of their journey began before Christmas last year and it's now nearly Easter, the Carters actually did the almost whole thing in one month, October 1959. Like a lot of people who make epic trips, they didn't hang around at the exotic places they passed through; though surely they were lucky to go just at the end of the Propliner Era when flying was still relatively comfortable and exclusive. What they did after Rome was to return very briefly to Amsterdam:

This means going almost due north over the Alps and Zurich, up between France and Germany, then across tiny Luxembourg and Belgium into Holland. You will be pleased to learn that they were back in Rode Zee (Red Sea), the same DC-7C that had brought them over the Atlantic. Our flyable -in-fs version is her sister Middelandse See (Mediterranean Sea):

We left at 09.00 in the morning with an ETA of around 11.40.

There were still a lot of Dutch at Ciampino and you'll note the two KLM liveries both in use at the same time.

Also this snazzy Irish Viscount:

The original name for that aircraft was going to be 'Viceroy', but Vickers dropped that when the British quit their Indian Empire and there were no more Viceroys. It seems most unlikely that he Irish (who, like the Indians, had also been ruled by a hated British Viceroy) would have written that word quite so big on the side of their airplanes. Another Swissair at Ciampino; we'll be overflying his country soon:

Nice shot taken just above the tower. We left from Gate 4:

Waiting by the south-facing runway:

This was slightly disconcerting because of course we'd have to turn to go north and those pesky mountains are horribly close going this way, whereas it's perfectly flat in the other direction:

But in aviation you must do as you are told whether orders come from Ground Control, ATC or, in a modern aeroplane, your computer.

There was JUST enough runway for the DC-7, though I'd prefer to rotate at 120, rather than 116 knots!

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

It's close, but you can clear those hills:

Not the place to go for a quiet picnic with the family. We turn around and pass by the airport again...

...and then Rome...

...all the while climbing up to 14000 feet:

Here's the exit map:

Mrs Carter describes their flight skirting the Italian coast, giving us a fine view of the Island of Corsica, but we went more directly over central Italy, so you'll see the Appenines, the north Italian plain and then the Alps. Now we've reached our cruise altitude:

This is Lake Trasimene where, in a land battle, Hannibal and his Carthaginians wiped out a Roman army in 217 B.C., killing the Consul Flamminius (and 15,000 less important Romans). You can see how close he got to destroying Rome itself, but his troops were busy looting & pillaging the countryside and the Roman citizens just managed to rally; though it took them another 16 years before they finally beat Carthage.

Next map shows how the Appennines swing across Italy north of Florence and you have to go over them before passing cities like Parma (excellent hard cheese, Mrs Carter), Brescia, Piacenza and Milan:

And here are those Appennines:

After which we overheard this very rude French DC-3:

Lucky Mrs Carter didn't hear THAT!

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Douglas FUKOF turns out to be one of those unmarked MercAir boys, flying a mysterious cargo from Venezia Tessera to Campo del Oro. No doubt the false registration was carefully thought up as a message to Interpol, should they show too much interest in this particular Gooneybird!

Some nice GA around there too:

I was trying to get a shot to show the slightly disconcerting flames you can see coming out of the exhaust on the 7C's Wright R-3350-18EA1 Turbo Compound radial engines:

(Think it's a bit clearer in some later pictures). Not sure exactly which Italian city this was:

Possibly Piacenza and the River Po. But we soon saw the unmistakable Alps up ahead, which are only just north of Milan:

There's one airport near Milan:

And another on our left after a slight heading change:

Unfortunately I was busy with the manoeuvers, so didn't get to look round those airports with TT this time. Over the Alps we spot...

EGPB - LIML, Sumburgh, Shetland Islands, Scotland - Linate, Italy. Nice one. Down below an exotic visitor from afar:

He's in Zurich, about halfway between Rome and Amsterdam:

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Time to deploy the flag of Switzerland, unique in being square. Some people would say the whole country is rather square, not exactly rock'n'roll anyway. It certainly won't ever be joining the European Union, being very proud to be quite separate from the rest of the world, including keeping out of both World Wars (though it was convenient for the Allies and Axis powers to leave it like that. Napoleon's armies went through the place like a hot knife through butter). I have been there in reality (skiing), but to no airports: we went by train.

Beautiful scenery:

Lakes and more lakes. To put it in all three local languages: Seen und mehr Seen. Les lacs et les lacs plus. Laghi e laghetti di più... (actually it's best in Dutch: Meren en meer meren!):

Flew directly over Zurich...

...and took a look at the airport, Kloten, below:

(You can see the famous exhaust flames a bit better in these pictures too). Tried to get a closer look at the AI down there:

This map shows the whole of the first half of this flight:

Coming up to the border there. More nice GA noticed below:

And an AIR FERRY C-47. These Brit freighters must have been carrying British manufactured products all of the world at the time, we've seen several UK air/shipping lines like this:

But, as seen from the map above, we were by now through the Alps, past a small corner of Germany and over the French Republic!

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Another exotic from the other side of the planet:

And a slightly more local lad:

(Brussels Natl - Malpensa, Italy). Overflying Luxembourg:

They didn't have their own ATC Centre, we were switched straight from Reims to Brussels. Another British freightliner (or passenger charter?) from TRADAIR:

He's flying Manchester - Worthersee Intl., Austria. Think this was the city of Liege...

....which puts us over Belgium (along with Switzerland, the best chocolate in the world, but not, alas, noted for it's cheeses, Mrs C.). A large Belgian airport...

...and someone spotted below...

Going from Prunay in France to Emden, Germany. We then crossed these massive rivers:

I believe it's the Waal and the Meuse near Nijmegen...

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

That means we're home, over The Netherlands. We fly right up to the Markermeer (southern part of the inland sea below the Ijsselmeer) to turn at an angle and approach RW 22:

Map showing our approach:

And another map showing the second half of this flight, Switzerland - Holland:

Was still a bit too high & too fast, but managed to bring it down at a steep angle with full flaps down. Real passengers would not have liked it, but the virtual ones never complained.

Using TT, stumbled across these fantastic Lockheed P2V Neptunes:

I believe these are at the Valkenburg NAS and have been made by Jaap de Baare :salute: and Harry Biard :salute:. Forgot I'd installed them! Superb:

Valkenburg is now no longer in use, but scenery & aircraft to recreate the '50s & '60s are available. Another look at those beauties:

Seems like they're fully-crewed and just about to go out on patrol.

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Valkenburg comes with the '60s Rotterdam, but you need to add the AI separately. Not sure if the Dutch really had P2's quite as early as '59, but they add some much-needed military to the period. Rotterdam airport (by de Baare, Biard & Wolfgang Gersch) also gives you the whole enormous Entrepot (a word I learnt in Geography lessons at school!) at the mouth of the Rhine (Rijn in Dutch) with ships loading & unloading, so it's essential.

TT noticed this unusual Fokker Friendship which has recently been completed at the factory and is being tested prior to its trip to the Far East where it'll be working:

And another DC-3 from one of those small British airlines:

Going to Dusseldorf. Of course SILVER CITY were most famous for the cross-channel Bristol Freighter air ferry Lydd, Ferryfield - Le Touquet (as used by a certain James Bond in the real Casino Royale, i.e. the book).

These Lockheed Starfighters have been made under licence at Fokker and are off to join the Royal Dutch Air Force:

Which also uses F-27s:

Yet another small British operator on the ground at Rotterdam:

And this interesting Norwegian who has certainly been known to turn up in more exotic places than just northern Europe:

Best of all, yet another Friendship, made for the crazy Portuguese Empire in Angola (which lasted into the 1970s, to no benefit whatsoever either to Portugal or Angola):

Might as well see the Angolan flag from after independence: as I'm not planning to go there in the near future. Well, we already know that the Il-14s get this far west, and here's a Hungarian one:

He has just left Amsterdam and is going home via LKPR = Ruzyne, Czechoslovakia; we've been there with the Carters. Back in Holland again, time for some delicious hagelslag & pickled herring!

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

EHAM - EGLL

Sarah Elizabeth Carter has a chapter in It happened to us called Land of our native tongue - England. Most people can probably think of a little more than just a language that Britain gave to the USA, but still. (It reminds me of when Homer Simpson said 'Why should I learn English? I'm never gonna go to England.') Presumably, with a name like Carter, husband Glenmore had British ancestry, even if her own forebears were Dutch, though this is never mentioned. Anyway, even if the Brits do turn out to be just some more primitive, impoverished Yur'peans might as well mosey on over and take a look at their spread...

Vincent was waiting at Schiphol's Gate 20:

The Carters actually flew back from Rome in the morning, bolted a quick cheesy lunch, spent the afternoon sightseeing in Amsterdam, then flew to London that evening! But I'm taking this stage of the virtual version of their vacation at about 15.00:

This start put us at the end of a very fine row of KLM hardware of the time, showing different types, different liveries:

The Electra with a more rounded tail and black nose at the end, old DC-3, Convair (240?) in the earlier paintscheme, then us the CV-340. Couldn't see the Tupolev that's usually rusting away there, but noticed a nice Pan Am 707 opposite:

Time to move away, this being a conveniently close start point for RW22:

There was only a brief wait at the end of the runway with only an Irish Fokker Friendship behind us:

And we were off, conveniently pointing in more-or-less the right direction (though we'll have to turn north), so no heading changes are required for a while. Nowadays you do this hop in a small Airbus which never gets anywhere near its cruise height, but the Convair was to reach 14000 feet.

Leaving one huge airport and heading for another...

It seemed to be a popular time for the Irish to be in the air. I think the one just after us was a recently-built F-27 on a shakedown flight, the other was a Viscount arriving from Dublin.

Map of our departure and climb to cruise altitude, heading for the border with Belgium:

RTM is Rotterdam coming up...

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Yes, Rotterdam at the mouth of the Rhine, Europe's greatest river:

The freight barges, cranes, oil refineries and docks below:

TT picks up this British United Bristol Type 170 Freighter:

Interesting Aviation Traders ATL.98 Carvair down at EHRD:

It's adapted from a DC-4 to carry automobiles and up to 85 passengers. Caught one of the Royal Dutch Navy Neptunes from Valkenburg out on patrol too:

So cool it deserves another picture:

It was pretty hazy on the European mainland, so I thought we'd better have our lights on:

Then I took a look back at Schiphol and found that the Tupy had returned to its usual spot without any wheels!

In the background you probably noticed this magnificent Singhalese Superconnie:

They still called Sri Lanka Ceylon in those days:

You could say that finding it there was Serendipity...

 

[Willy]

(It reminds me of when Homer Simpson said 'Why should I learn English? I'm never gonna go to England.')

I must say that as a teenager back in the country high school in Arkansas, I made pretty much the same remark to my English teacher. I ended up doing a tour in Scotland and numerous port visits to southern England (Portsmouth and Plymouth mostly)

To further quote that great sage, "DOH!"

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

And running MercAir. Another of your good ol' boys turns up again soon running God Knows What from God Knows Where to God Knows There...

Final overview of EHAM, though we will be going back with the Carters later:

(They were busy hurrying out with new wheels for that Tupolev which is due to GO SOMEWHERE soon). Just over the Belgian border, quite near Bruges, we make our biggest heading change and start to head NNW over a short stretch of the North Sea:

Oddly enough we did go from Brussels Control back to Amsterdam Centre briefly (must have been going over the Dutch waters protected by those Neptunes).

It's not long till the English coast appears ahead:

TT spotted this DC-3 from Derby Airways down in Belgium. This was a funny little charter airline that later became the basis of today's British Midland:

Aircraft approaching Heathrow from Germany and the Low Countries (they are called that because we have a lot of cows lowing in the background) fly into the Thames Estuary:

The large historic naval base of Chatham is near the mouth of the Thames, on the River Medway which also comes out there. In 1667 Dutch Admiral Michiel de Ruyter managed to break through a chain boom at Gillingham, sailed up and destroyed 16 British warships at anchor. He then went home towing the British flagship Royal Charles. (For some reason this incident remains quite well known in Holland, but is almost completely forgotten by the English).

We caught the Red Baron on a mysterious flight from Hamburg to Kidlington in Oxfordshire:

You'll remember that the Thames is tidal right up beyond London, so it's perfect for large ships to sail a long way and unload in safety. Millions of years ago it was a tributary of the Rhine, but obviously we now have the North Sea where they used to meet.

London kind of developed naturally around the first place where the wide estuary can easily be crossed, originally at low tide by wading your cattle through a ford, later, when the Romans came along, by a bridge.

And of course that was the famous 'London Bridge'. Unbelievably there was only ever one bridge over the river in London itself until the 18th Century when the whole river was much wider and shallower at low tide, before they built embankments through the town.

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Another view of that Bristol Freighter, showing that its airline is in fact Channel Air Bridge (so perhaps the TT label was wrong above?):

Here's the Thames snaking away ahead:

Map showing our flight down the Dutch coast, crossing that bit of the North Sea and entry to the Estuary:

Just put this in 'cos I liked those wispy clouds:

And now we start to see the Port of London docks below us:

There is central London itself:

Battersea Power Station stands out with its 4 chimneys at the top, round the bend, just beyond the Houses of Parliament on the other side of the river. It was immortalised on a record sleeve (remember them? It was Pink Floyd's Animals), but is just an empty shell now. Hasn't generated a Watt of power for decades, but the building is considered so iconic that they won't pull it down, though nobody can think of anything sensible to do with it. Anyway, it'll still be there in FSX if you ever go into that. We now see Heathrow in the distance:

Next map shows how they sent us round to line up for RW 9L. Give me Beirut approaching from the Med any day.

A small airfield below on Dirk's side which I haven't yet i/d'ed (Hendon? Do they still have the runway there? Or did I install the old one? It's now an RAF museum of course):

With this Morton Air Services Hermes below (at EGKK London, Gatwick, of which more later):

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

We get clearance:

And it was a pretty good landing:

Have had enough practice with these Convairs now!

Obviously there aren't quite such "crowded skies" 50 years ago at Heathrow as you'll find today, but you still need to get off the runway fast. That Frenchman was the next customer:

Off to Orly:

We've only just had reality Easter, but virtual Christmas arrives early for you now if you like seeing these AI aircraft from the Age of Elegance...

(BTW, that's someone flying from Farnborough to Jonkoping, Sweden, up above). We arrived a little late, landing at 15.15, rather a quiet time at the 1959 Heathrow.

(An Iberian just taking off for Barajas in Spain there). I was lucky to get a nice easy parking spot at the end of a row. Oddly enough, we were the only Dutch airplane in at that time:

I thought POLLOT on TT might prove yet another little British freight carrier, but of course it turned out to be this Polish LOT Ilyushin scuttling away:

And TT also caught a beautiful BOAC Comet 4C just leaving:

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Breaking news: CNN says Polish President killed in aircrash. It was a Tupolev 154 trying to land in 'heavy fog' at Smolensk, Russia this morning. We see film of fed-up looking Russians, some of them apparently teenagers in uniform, wandering aimlessly about and lighting cigarettes amongst the strewn wreckage. The undercarriage is nicely down, but hanging from the top of some trees. Hmm...

Let's draw a veil over that and go take another look at that Comet at Heathrow in '59;

Then TT picked up this Dan Air Ambi at Gatwick:

I can remember when Gatwick was still considered the vulgar, charter airline airport for cheap package holidays in Torremolinos and smart people flew on proper national carriers, preferably in jets, from Heathrow; Gatwick is now nearly as big as Heathrow, and London has a third major airport at Luton to the north. Here's a very interesting Nigerian Stratocruiser:

The old West African Air Corporation paintscheme is indistinguishable from BOAC at a distance, but Nigeria was soon to get independence when WAA would become Nigeria Airways, and we see the livery going through its transition. The wonderful BOAC row:

(Thank you Tom & Wolfgang!) All Britannias except for the two African Stratocruisers. These are near the Terminal building, not the BOAC maintenance hangar. RAF Transport Command Avro York nearby:

That's going from Manchester to Birmingham. Here's a different one on the ground:

(From the grid reference, somewhere in the Midlands near Coventry. Wherever it is, a very grim barracks for the poor old Erks in the background there!) Another of those many British operators from the time, a Falcon Airways Hermes (not at Heathrow or Gatwick, but TT spotted it nearby):

And a general view of several Brits back at Heathrow:

Let's home in on that BKS Ambi:

That font would have been considered ever so modern and stylish. The Ambassador had probably seen better days too...

Another Heron back at Gatwick (and note the BEA Ambassador's tail with Royal Mail badge):

Is it just me, or do you always find that nosewheel arrangement a bit worrying?

 

[tgibson]

Hi Ralf,

I just love Heathrow.

BTW, the LOT twin is actually a Convair 240 (instead of one of their IL-14's). LOT tended to use their second hand Convairs on routes to the West, and use the Ilyushin on routes within the Soviet Bloc. Not to say the IL-14's never made it to the west, because they did on occasion.

That Falcon Hermes is probably at Southend (EGMC), which was their base of operations. Channel Airways also used Southend, as seen in the background.

Hope this helps,

Tom Gibson
CalClassic Propliners
www.calclassic.com