Mr & Mrs Thomas do Europe, 1927

[Ralf Roggeveen]

"I've just heard. She won't be coming round the mountain when she comes."

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In this case it's a matter of coming round the mountain and locating the Austrian airport.

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Managed to spot a bit of runway sticking out up there.

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I'd also calculated the descent accurately, though you always have to be extra careful when a good deal of the ground is at your altitude or higher...

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A good theory is that aeroplanes are likely to go for the flattest bit, somewhere near the river...

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This proved correct!

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[Ralf Roggeveen]

The next leg, north to Munich in Germany, should be quite straightforward once you get over the Karwendelgebirge mountains and out of the Inn Valley. The Oberbayern (Upper Bavaria) region of Germany is almost as flat as Holland (though it is, by contrast, 1500 feet above sea level). Thought of doing it in this Dornier Merkur, a type which the Thomases definitely flew in:

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This is the Ad Astra one which in 1927 reality would have gone from Zurich - Stuttgart - Halle/Leipzig - Berlin. There's no 2D screen, so you have to fly from the VC:

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You can see how we're hemmed in on all sides by the high ground:

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I began to appreciate why Imperial Airways were so careful about choosing a route all the way to India that avoided ever having to climb over mountains, as flown last year.

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All nicely lined up ready to go when this crazy red AI Waco appeared!

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I wondered whether he was going to land OVER us, or if they'd tell him to abort...

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He did Go Around, phew!

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And we took off and climbed out of there quite nicely...

 

[Sunny9850]

I love the big Zeppelin airships and Bill Lyons creation is certainly among the best if not the best available. And I even started a few times to do her famous RTW voyage. But like you I always ended up scrapping the effort when confronted with the reality of just how long it would take to complete.
And while I do not have an aluminium piano in the lounge, but could still occasionally retreat to other things besides steering the big cigar through the air, I just can't bring myself to finish the job. Maybe if I could walk out into the engine gondolas and check the oil on the massive Maybach (??) diesel engines or stroll through the well appointed interior and talk to the well to do travelers I could stick it out.

http://www.mediafire.com/?bcj7rbbwzylob
These are a few pictures from a few years back now when I visited the Zeppelin museum in Friedrichshafen ... unfortunately after the Dornier Museum my camera batteries were dead and I did not get any of the interior of the partial fuselage you can walk through in that museum.

But I did get a picture at the Dornier museum of the Merkur you were flying in.


Cheers
Stefan

 

[Cees Donker]

Hi Ralf,

Just found your thread (didn't have time for internet the past three weeks, and didn't have internet at all the past week), otherwise I could have sent you a basic scenery for Brussels, anno 1929, backdated from 1961. It was the old terminals at Haren, which were opened in 1929 (previously, the terminal was a wooden barrack), which was Brussels' civilian airport until Melsbroek opened in 1947. Afterwards, the airport continued to be used as a Sabena/Belgian Air Force maintenance base until 1956, and as a GA airport with limited use until its complete closure in 1961, after which the terminal became the Belgian Air Force administrative HQ.



Unfortunately, the very nice Art Deco buildings were demolished 4 years ago, as the new NATO HQ is being built there (the old NATO HQ was built in the late 1960s over what were Haren's runways). This means the only buildings remaining of this old airport are the SABCA aircraft factory buildings, which were originally located on the northern edge of the landing grounds (the runways only came with the Germans in 1940). Some taxiways also survive, as they have been incorporated in an extension of the municipal cemetary, which was originally located on the western edge of the airfield. Also surviving is a very small section of one of the runways, just east of the NATO HQ, as wel as sections of the taxiway which connected Haren with the nearby Melsbroek Air Base (present-day Zaventem/Brussels Airport) - built by the Germans, but mainly used post-war to taxi aircraft between Haren and Melsbroek, as the former didn't have long enough runways for types such as the DC-4 and DC-6, or for military jets such as the Meteor or F-84G, which were maintained at the SABCA plant at Haren as late as 1956. (In 1956, SABCA opened a new plant at Gosselies/Charleroi, the present 'Brussels South Airport').

The terminal buildings were built by Harry Biard, as part of our upcoming Central Europe 1961 scenery (Haren is just 2 miles west of Brussels Airport).

Nikko

So that's what Harry is doing at the moment! He started on some additional scenery for Amsterdam some time ago. I must convince him to take that up again. It looked excellent, just like this does. And now I'll stop hi-jacking your beautiful thread Ralf.

Cees

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Wow! You have been to the Holy Grail, Sunny; thanks for the link. You're right: LZ127 had five 580 hp Maybach VL2 12 cylinder engines.

I forgot to show interior shots of the Lyons version:

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The bridge

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You learn how to use these dials properly and blow the right whistle at the right time!

Monochromed a few screenies a while ago:

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Put yourself in, steering it...

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Look out! This wicked lady is always trying to seduce you away from concentrating on the flight...

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While the steward keeps an eye on everybody and makes sure your glass (or coffee mug in my case) is never empty...

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Neville Chamberlain and Ernst Rohm are having secret talks in there...

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...It's beyond a mere flight simulator!

 

[Sunny9850]

Well...the sad thing is that Friedrichshafen or Lake Constance is only about 2h away from where I grew up and lived for the first 28+ years of my life and I never did get around to visiting either museum until a few years ago on a vacation in Germany from my current residence in California. Like my Dad always puts it : " we know far reaches of the world better than our own back yard "

Both the Dornier museum and the Zeppelin museum are extremely well presented and have lots of unique pieces of their respective company histories available that you will not find easily anywhere else.
Parts and pieces of the Do-X along with the detailed build plans for the huge flying boat (unfortunately those were under glass, because they would have made excellent resources for a FS version with millimeter accuracy) and almost all the other aviation milestones created by Dornier in one, and in the other a very nice selection of artifacts from the very first Zeppelin all the way through to the L-127 and L-129. My personal favorite from a pure metal working point of view is one of the motor gondolas, can't remember from which ship, showing such craftsmanship that I was locked in place for quite some time studying the build. Another nice touch were the "touchable" exhibits. For example one that explained why the aluminium frame work was build just so, and demonstrated how much stronger it was while being many times lighter than other construction materials and methods. Here you get to lift meter long sections of the internal bracing and physically compare it to equal length braces made by other methods. Then try to twist another section or bend it...and again compare that to a similar length of other materials and structures.

No wonder I got sent in by myself while the rest of my family toured around the city and then had cake and coffee at the lake shore :mixedsmi:

Cheers
Stefan

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Friedrichshafen is on my list of Zeppelin-factories-to-visit-before-you-die, I'll tell my wife about going off to the alternatives in town - always useful to know.

Afraid I was forced to turn back in the Dornier on the Innsbruck - Munich stage (don't worry, it will be back), the problem being that using IFR they expected us to go through mountains that were still in the way since it couldn't climb quickly enough without stalling. Decided to test this instead:

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The Junkers F13 we were talking about recently. A better rate of climb, and I could plot my own route, avoiding those pesky mts.

You'll want to see the interior:

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It did indeed seat four passengers.

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Climbs nicely, but slowly...

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...a matter of getting over that Karwendelgebirger range.

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That's the crest of a mountain, so there wasn't a lot of clearance. (The top of Christmas trees is strictly for fairies).

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But Dr Junkers did not let us down, and we emerged onto the great plain of Upper Bavaria.

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In the F13 you always have a good view of your exhaust...

 

[Volker Böhme]

Well...the sad thing is that Friedrichshafen or Lake Constance is only about 2h away from where I grew up and lived for the first 28+ years of my life and I never did get around to visiting either museum until a few years ago on a vacation in Germany from my current residence in California. Like my Dad always puts it : " we know far reaches of the world better than our own back yard "

Both the Dornier museum and the Zeppelin museum are extremely well presented and have lots of unique pieces of their respective company histories available that you will not find easily anywhere else.
Parts and pieces of the Do-X along with the detailed build plans for the huge flying boat (unfortunately those were under glass, because they would have made excellent resources for a FS version with millimeter accuracy) and almost all the other aviation milestones created by Dornier in one, and in the other a very nice selection of artifacts from the very first Zeppelin all the way through to the L-127 and L-129. My personal favorite from a pure metal working point of view is one of the motor gondolas, can't remember from which ship, showing such craftsmanship that I was locked in place for quite some time studying the build. Another nice touch were the "touchable" exhibits. For example one that explained why the aluminium frame work was build just so, and demonstrated how much stronger it was while being many times lighter than other construction materials and methods. Here you get to lift meter long sections of the internal bracing and physically compare it to equal length braces made by other methods. Then try to twist another section or bend it...and again compare that to a similar length of other materials and structures.

No wonder I got sent in by myself while the rest of my family toured around the city and then had cake and coffee at the lake shore :mixedsmi:

Cheers
Stefan

Hi,

great place, yes. One thing I remember are the instructions for landing sites that usually don't recieve airships. They call for a handling party of level-headed men, theat don't get scared and run away when the huge aiship comes closer and closer - "as it usually happens."

Here's a view from theoutside of the partially rebuilt section. Just huge - and on the wall is a drawing that shows how little of the airship is actually reconstructed.
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Best regards,
Volker

 

[Sunny9850]

One of these days I'll have to try flying solid IFR in one of these Oldtimers ... it's hard enough to do for any length of time in a basic steam gauge equipped GA airplane licensed to do it today.
If nothing else the pre-6-pack days of panel arrangement make flying by the gauges alone quite a handful. Especially if you are used to a modern layout and instrument scan.

As for the sending the wife off into town on her own....well...that could potentially get quite expensive. There are plenty of jewelry stores, boutique clothing stores and of course tons of knick-knack touristy stores mixed in with the more cultural offerings. So you might want to hang on to the credit cards :salute:

And finally can you imagine standing in the middle of a field and watching one of these behemoth coming at you ?? Especially in a time when most "common" folk would have barely ever seen a picture of one or anything like it ??
I did tour the New Zeppelin FBO in the hopes that there may be an open seat (fat chance ....they were booked for month) and watched the NG come in for a landing and while much smaller it was still quite an impressive sight. Of course with the modern technology in engine / prop design the NG can actually "land" completely without a ground crew. They did however have a pair of "rampies" greeting the ship while I watched.

:ernae:
Stefan

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Munich stands on the River Isar, but to the south we pass the Starnberger See, a lake on the Wurm:

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I believe that the airport in this period should be Oberwiesenfeld (Volker?), though the best GW3 had to offer (so far) is really the modern Munich International.

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This is to the northeast of the city, so you have to overfly it coming from Innsbruck (I do like that German style church with baroque towers, one of the better details of the mostly bland default Microsoft scenery).

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That'll be a soccer stadium in Germany, maybe Bayern Munchen? Navigating myself with no radio comms I started an approach to the wrong airport, but realised in time and went round.

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Managed to find the right one which has parallel landing strips and horrible buildings.

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Not complaining about the unrealistic concrete runways, especially the way they're kept nicely swept and stand out in the snow.

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The F13 torques badly to the left, so you need to apply a lot of right rudder to keep control once you're down.

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Next stop, due east back across the Austro/German border to Vienna...

 

[Volker Böhme]

Hi Ralf,

yes, Oberwiesenfeld would have be the airport for Munich during this period until the outbrealk of WWII. Originally, airpot operations would have been on the north side of the field, but a completely new terminal and hangar was opened on the souhwest corner of the field in 1931. Airline operations - limited as they were after the outbreak of WWII - were transferred to Riem on 25 Oct. 1939. Oberwiesenfeld airfield was still used for General Aviation until the 60's, the terminal building housed Radio Free Europe at that time. However, the whole site was converted to the Munich Olympic Park for the 1972 Olympics.

An alternative to current Munich International might be Schleißheim (EDNX) - slightly north of Munich, one of the oldest airfields in Germany still existing. It now houses part of the Aviation section of the German Museum of Technology.
Link in English: http://www.deutsches-museum.de/en/flugwerft/information/

Fürstenfeldbruck, Oberpfaffenhofen, Neubiberg and Erding were built during the 30's during the Luftwaffe's massive re-armament program. The current airfield at Erdinger Moos (EDDM) was opened in 1992.

Best regards,
Volker

 

[Sunny9850]

The big church is of course the "Frauen Kirche" or "Cathedral of Our Dear Lady". It is actually quite unique in it's architecture. It was supposed to be built with similar gothic spires as the Dome in Cologne, but those were never completed. So in 1525 the now very recognizable round domes were constructed.
Because of a city ordinance that limits building height to 109 meters even to this day the towers are an easy to use landmark anywhere in the city.

As Volker said the big stadium was of course part of the 1972 Olympic Games and then home of Bayern Munich and 1860 Munich soccer teams until a few years ago when a brand new and much larger stadium was built.
An interesting note to the stadium is that it was built in a WWII bomb crater, probably more than one single bomb, which made excavation for the stadium bowl easier. The cable suspended/stabilized glass roof was revolutionary in it's time and is supposed to represent the nearby Alps.
:ernae:
Stefan

Ps. The small rudder surface is likely blanked out by the wing in the initial roll. You might need to start the roll with less than takeoff power to limit the left turning tendency until you reach sufficient speed to raise the tail. Of course keeping an eye on your overall runway length.

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

You'll recall that the Thomases flew direct from Munich to Vienna 'in a single-engined, all-metal German monoplane' (p.161), almost certainly a Junkers F13. I decided to make the trip a bit more interesting by going via Salzburg which is just on the Austrian side of the border between Oberbayern (Upper Bavaria) and Oberoestereich (Upper Austria).

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A good flight to make in the Dornier that didn't like those mountains around Innsbruck, since it's all perfectly flat and the mountains keep their distance. This is the Dornier Merkur (Mercury) by Ralf Kreibich. It was a variant and slight improvement on the original Komet and there was also a floatplane version called the Delphin.

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No 2-D screen so you have to fly from the beautifully-rendered, more exciting VC. Note the blue stick pulled right back there for Mixture at 'full rich' to get airborne.

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As we found out at Innsbruck, it climbs slowly and steadily. We have the old problem encountered last year with Imperial of flying eastwards at dawn and being more and more dazzled by the rising sun!

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But it was all very pretty with those Alps safely to the south off our starboard side. The main natural feature we passed was the Chiemsee, source of the River Alz which is a tributary of our old friend the Danube, greatest river in Europe after the Rhine.

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This flight takes about an hour in a slow 1920s aircraft, but with the monotonous scenery and (literally) straightforward navigation it would have been a bit boring just to plough on all the way to Vienna.

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Managed to locate the airport near those famous hills which Hollywood informs everyone were 'alive with The Sound of Music' around this time...

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[Ralf Roggeveen]

Seem to recall an earlier posting of the depressing fact that more people go to Salzburg for the Trapp Family Singers trail than for the other musical person who came from here...

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart!

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Oddly enough poor old Mozart did get a bit of the Sound of Music treatment when the movie Amadeus came out.

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I was working in a Music Library at the time and we had a few people come in asking if he'd written anything else?

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If you are interested in the First World War in the Mediterranean, Georg von Trapp (1880 - 1947) has a quite different significance from being merely the father of the all-singin' Bratt family high on a hill with that lonely goatherd... He was, of course, an Imperial Austrian U-Boat ace, fighting in extremely difficult conditions with great success, including the sinking of the 12,500 ton French cruiser Leon Gambetta.

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Unbelievable Movie Trivia #2758: Julie Andrews, 'Maria' from the Sound of Music was the original inspiration for the Bo Derek character in '10'...

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Now where were we? Oh yes, Salzburg, 1927.

EDIT: Moderator removed "racey 10" picture from family viewing

 

[Sunny9850]

LOL Ralf, now you're not only posting beautiful airplane and flying pics you also throw in the definitive 10

Yes I had that poster on my wall, next to Farrah in her red swim suit
:ernae:

Stefan

 

[hurricane3]

Ok , so I'am slow on the uptake

I'am a bit slow in finally reading all this thread but Mr Wing_Z I sir, take umbrage (is that right? well you know what I mean) to you calling Xena_Warrior_Princess a cheap Kiwi. I am from Pennsylvania but she's the love of my life and although 64 I'am gonna be obliged to challange you to a duel if I can remember where I put my sword.Be afraid sir be ahhhh,hows the rest of that go?

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Well, I'm sorry Bo got banned. The picture only came out small on my PC and I believe she was wearing a bikini-bottom (probably enormous compared to today's stringy thongs) but it was a bit ambiguous. Nice to see that wholesome Julie has had nearly 50 looks, however. As for this duelling business: hurricane3 is clearly:

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THE DUELLING SOUTHERN COLONEL from The Simpsons. And who could forget the Xena episode from the same?

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Didn't notice Wing_Z calling XWP 'cheap', but can't help thinking that her production people don't exacly have - how to put this? - unlimited funds...

Funny how that didn't lead to a cultural debate on the relative merits of the Trapps and the Wolfgang, but there you have it.

Time to press on to Vienna, (and talking of lowbrow culture, every time I mention that great city to my wife she sings 'Oh Vienna...', as in the irritating Ultravox song from when grandad was a boy). We shall go in this:

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The Me20a, another fine cantilever-winged German airliner of the era.

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Again, this is from the stable of Ralf Kreibich, with his trademark 1920s babe pinned to the VC instrument panel! Looks like the Dietrich herself (which gets Suzanne Vega's Marlene on the Wall into my head - better than Oh Vienna anyway).

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This airplane comes complete with a strange steward called Putzi who had an interesting earlier life in Zeppelins during the War - and a less-disciplined time in a Berlin nightclub after that - before joining Luft Hansa in 1925. He keeps the Thomases supplied with a refreshing Schnapps cocktail served in the most elegant glasses - sensibly refused by the crew whenever he tried to make us sample them.

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Dawn begins to break as we fly ever eastwards, passing the three lakes, the Mondsee, the Attersee...

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and the Trauensee...

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[Ralf Roggeveen]

This is the heart of the country created in 1919 called Austria, essentially the German part left over from the the great Empire of Austria-Hungary: both of those countries, plus much of northern Italy and most of the Balkans.

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It is remarkably flat - we have left the mountains behind us around Innsbruck in the Tyrol and those hills-alive-with-the-sound-etc at Salzburg.

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Before the creation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1805 it was still called the Holy Roman Empire, ruled by the Hapsburgs. This could trace its origins right back to Charlemagne in the 9th Century AD. At their height in the 16th Century Hapsburg possessions included Spain, Holland, Mexico, Peru and the Phillipines. Sir Walter Raleigh was really worried and warned that it was the Empire the sun never sets on...

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A phrase later more commonly applied to British possessions in the 19th Century. All this Central European Plain is excellent for battles, and Battles We've got 'em!

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When his sister, Queen Marie-Antoinette, was executed by the French Revolutionaries in 1793, the Emperor Joseph II was somewhat vexed and naturally attacked France. Unfortunately for the old European order the French still had a good army (especially in artillery) left over from royal times. Since they'd had a revolution and were now a Nation of Citizens (not just subjects of a king any more) they also introduced something called Conscription... and promoted soldiers by ability, not just giving them command because they were noble.

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One particular lowly artillery officer quickly rose to prominence. Napoleon Bonaparte first fought the Austrians in Italy as a young Republican General 1796 - 1800. He kept on beating them, but the cautious French government (The Directory) would not let him go and capture Vienna. So he had to return to Paris (after a quick sideshow conquest of Egypt), take over running France politically, crown himself Emperor, THEN defeating the Austrians and entering Vienna at the end of 1805.

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Although the Holy Roman Empire was abolished, Austria-Hungary remained powerful and, bankrolled and encouraged by the British, fought back in 1809. One battle, which the Austrians won under their best General, Archduke Charles, was fought at Aspern (June 21st), site of the 1920s airport - which we've reached.

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But despite beating Napoleon himself at Aspern and the next day at Essling, Charles was decisively defeated at Wagram and the less famous, less easy-to-say Battle of Znaim the following month.

After that Napoleon kept the Austrians on-side by divorcing poor old Josephine and marrying Austrian Princess Marie-Louise, daughter of the Emperor Francis II (and therefore niece of Marie-Antoinette if you can work out all the ironies in that particular piece of historic power politics).

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Now it was time for the Thomases to fly to the other capital of the old Hapsburg Empire: Budapest in Hungary. They seem to have still been going east in some sort of SPAD, but probably would have been more comfortable, like us, back in the F13:

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After the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815, Austria-Hungary was one of the victorious Allies, along with Britain, Russia and Prussia. The brilliant, ruthless foreign minister Metternich did a lot to re-establish his Emperor's power and was hated by Liberals and Revolutionaries throughout Europe, especially in Italy.

The Junkers' Loyd Loom interior, basketwork seating being nice and light:

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It took until 1860 for the Italians to finally unite their country and remove the last Austrian troops, though Austria held onto the important port of Trieste until after WW1.

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By about 1900 Vienna was the cultural capital of Europe with superb art, architecture, music and science flourishing there.

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In the First World War the Germans rather rudely referred to their Austro-Hungarian Central Powers ally as 'the Corpse Empire', though the Austrians fought bravely on several difficult fronts, including holding off the French, British and Italian navies in the Adriatic (remember von Trapp in his U-boats?).

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But they finally lost and this time the Hapsburg Empire really was doomed, with several of the Balkan territories uniting into the new nation of Yugoslavia (= Land of the South Slavs), Hungary becoming an independent republic, the Slavonic north (Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia) breaking away into 'Czecho-slovakia', and only the small German part of the Empire being left around Vienna and west, into the Tyrol, as another new republic, 'Austria'.

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Bismarck had defeated the Austro-Hungarians in 1866, but never wanted to incorporate Austria into his Prussian-dominated German Empire.

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Hitler, although himself an Austrian, had hated the eclectic, easy-going, multicultural Hapsburg Empire. In 1914 he dodged the draft in Austria, but being a Germanic nationalist, happily volunteered for the Imperial German army.

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We are still following the Danube: Vienna, Budapest and Belgrade all stand on that great river.

And, of course, when in power in Germany after 1933, Hitler was able to achieve Anschluss (= literally connection/politically union) with Austria, just by marching in; but if The Sound of Music taught us anything it was that not all Austrians approved of that - the Kaisertreu von Trapp, for example!

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Learnt some geography from this flight...

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...Central Europe is flat!

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The F13 putters along very nicely.

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For some of this flight the Danube marks the national border between Slovakia, to the north, and Hungary.

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Reminded of the massiveness and power of this river in a recent (2012) news item that huge bergs of ice had formed on it, broken away and smashed several large boats and floating restaurants, destroying them.

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Budapest was originally the two separate towns of Buda and Pest, either side of the river...

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...till they invented bridges?

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Volker has informed me that Budaors (LHBS) is the right airport for the period.

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And we reach the capital of Hungary. We are now getting closer to what has been called a 'fault line' in European history/geography: where the Christian northwest meets the Muslim southeast...