Mr & Mrs Thomas do Europe, 1927

[Ralf Roggeveen]

The next leg that the Thomases flew was Budapest (Hungary) - Belgrade, capital of Yugoslavia. This large country, the south, including the Adriatic coast, of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, was less than ten years old in 1927. It has, of course, split back into five separate nations: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia & Montenegro and Macedonia. Belgrade remains the capital of Serbia which is still called 'Yugoslavia' by some Serbs. In 1928 the Thomases could have flown with the Hungarian airline Magyar Legiforgalmi R.T., Malert, in a Fokker F. VIIa:

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This is H-MFKA which, along with H-MFKB, plied the route between the two capitals 1928-35 (when they transferred to the Hungarian Air Force). We will, however, grab seats on the same type, but with KLM. At the time these would come through on the epic Amsterdam - Batavia (Indonesia) voyage. It arrived via Leipzig to Budapest and flew on to Athens after Belgrade:

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This aircraft built in 1925, changed registration to PH-ACT in '29, and was unfortunately destroyed at Schiphol on May 10th 1940 during the invasion.

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After leaving Budaors we overflew the city.

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Southern Europe is still covered in snow...

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...still flat as a pancake (or 'a witch's t1t' as one old pilot described a similar place he'd flown over).

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In prewar flying days flat countryside can be difficult since, without obvious landmarks like mountains, airfields are hard to spot...

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Dutch interlude

Recently, like a lot of retro-simmers, I've been having fun with Cees's superb Eve of War Netherlands...

After a DC-3 from Sweden landed back in neutral Holland peppered with machine-gun bullet holes (thanks to an over-zealous German seaplane over the Baltic), KLM decided that the best way to avoid getting shot at was to draw attention to themselves:

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Anyway, this patriotic DC-2 will be perfectly safe, since it's on a short internal flight from Texel down to Rotterdam.

The problem is that though the aircraft is easy to spot, the airport at Waalhaven isn't so obvious! It's up there somewhere, just the other side of the River...

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After several failed attempts I cheated by leaving the poor old DC-2 flying round with rapidly-depleting fuel tanks and taking this little beauty up from Waalhaven to have a look round:

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Note the circle, although those barges and cranes are a better long-distance landmark. You need to approach parallel to the River. This...

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...was much too fast and at the wrong angle so we went slap-bang into the Koolhoven factory. Not good.

The correct way to do it is to come in at 120 degrees roughly from the SE corner, pointing NW to the right of the factory & terminal. This is much better:

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Plenty of flaps -

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- and plenty of time to brake, slow down and taxi over to the buildings.

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You can sit at the cafe, have a nice coffee and a smoke, and enjoy the peaceful Dutch Spring of 1940.

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[Ralf Roggeveen]

Keep getting fanmail from people begging to see more of Irian-Jaya and the exotic Spice Islands, but first we must get Mr & Mrs Thomas to Constantinople!

If you remember, we were just flying from Budapest in Hungary down to Serbian capital Belgrade, cutting off a big loop in the Danube...

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We've passed Szeged and Novi Sad and are looking for our destination airport.

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It was easier to find than prewar Waalhaven.

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A nice smooth descent, never any problems landing the reliable old FVII...

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After refuelling they'll be going on to Athens and eventually Batavia, but Mr & Mrs T will be heading in a slightly different direction and need to change aircraft.

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Surely this snow can't persist much further south?

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Decided to cheat slightly for the next leg by going forward a few years to catch another airliner on its regular run:

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This is the SIAI Marchetti S.M.73 of A.L.S.A. - Ala Littoria Societa Anonima - one of the Italian airlines of the '30s, on the Rome - Belgrade - Bucharest route (It then went on to somewhere called 'Constanta' in the old Flying Reference Book, presumably Constantinople?).

You'll want to see the interior and wireless operator's position:

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Let's hope we won't be needing that extinguisher on the left. These fixed undercarriage S.M.73s were replaced by the more advanced '75 with retractable gear in 1937.

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Well, it got off the ground.

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I thought the mountains off our port wing were the Carpathians since the Atlas says CARPATII MERIDIONALI in Rumanian/pure Latin, but the real Carpathians (Karpaty) are much further north.

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In English these are the Transylvanian Alps - and we all know who lives there.

We cross the Danube (or Dunav if you use the local name) marking the Serbo-Rumanian border:

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Probably because of the fixed undercarriage it wasn't any faster than a '20s airplane, though there was a quite good (apparently German) autopilot and a transponder. A beautiful VC, though it was easier to fly the unfamiliar aircraft from the 2-D:

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(Towards the end of this flight I only just managed to recover from a terrifying stall - very nearly ending up in those wretched trees that will hang about near airports.)