'OVER EMPIRES AND OCEANS' - PIONEERS, AVIATORS AND ADVENTURERS - Forging the International Air Routes 1918-1939 (Published by Tattered Flag Press)

By Robert Bluffield

This is a story of pioneers, intrepid aviators, adventurers, tycoons and innovators. It is also a story of dedication and determination, for despite fixed-wing aircraft proving their value over the battlefields of the Western Front during the First World War, convincing governments and public alike that they had a role in peacetime proved far more challenging. 

The Americans, as inventors of heavier-than-air powered flight had briefly courted with a passenger airline across Tampa Bay in 1914, yet it took a further nine years for mail to be flown coast-to-coast. In 1919 a British company made the first international scheduled flight between London and Paris, but the continuation of regular services was thwarted by a less-than-enthusiastic government that allowed its generously subsidised French competition, for a short time at least, to fly cross-Channel passenger schedules unimpeded.

The British eventually realised that fast links with their Empire were vital, and followed the example of the French and Dutch who had forged air links with their cousins in North Africa and the Far East. 

Meanwhile, in South America, the Germans, forbidden under the Versailles Treaty from any major aircraft-building, were establishing cunning supremacy by forming airlines throughout South America and in China. While America awaited a transcontinental passenger service, Juan Trippe’s Pan American Airways was crossing swords with Ralph O’Neill of New York, Rio and Buenos Aires Line (NYRBA) for air supremacy between the US, Brazil, Argentina and elsewhere in Latin America, which led to the formation of arguably the world’s greatest airline.

In Russia, Igor Sikorsky had built a vast passenger-carrying aircraft, the Il’ya Muromets, and politicians debated whether giant airships or fixed-wing aircraft should rule the skies – an issue that was put firmly to bed when the mighty German airship, Hindenburg, exploded while mooring at Lakehurst in 1937.

Robert Bluffield’s highly researched and detailed account tells the dramatic stories of explorers such as Kingsford Smith, Lindbergh and Cobham, and flamboyant entrepreneurs, some well known, others forgotten, who risked fortunes and reputations to follow their dreams of reaching and ruling the skies over empires, continents and oceans. Against bewildering adversity, corruption, underhanded deals and dwindling resources, these tenacious individuals braved the elements using primitive, entirely unsuitable equipment to establish earth-shrinking aerial services that criss-crossed the great oceans and the globe’s most inhospitable territories. These are the stories of those pioneers – of Aéropostale, CNAC, Air Orient, Imperial Airways, KLM, Deutsche Luft Hansa, Pan Am, SCADTA, The Condor Syndicat, Qantas and others – which had a far-reaching impact on the way the modern world would travel.  

IF YOU'VE EVER HAD THE URGE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT RYANAIR ... CONSIDER THIS

Ryanair may not be your favourite airline but compared to what the Russian carrier Aeroflot was like in the 1950s flying with the Irish company would certainly present a more attractive proposition. 

I have recently acquired a copy of a most interesting series of books by the respected American journalist of the 1930s to 1960s; John Gunther called Inside Russia Today who wrote a series of in-depth books that documented the social and political events in many countries across the world.

The Russia volume was written in 1957 and in it Gunther describes some of his flying experiences as a passenger with Aeroflot, the state owned airline. Some of his observations are worth recounting especially as much of what he said had me in fits of laughter.

"All civil aviation within the Soviet Union is, of course, a state monopoly: he explains."Aeroflot has no competition, except on flights outside the country, and is run by the Ministry of Defence. Flying in Russia is apt to be pretty rough. This is an understatement. It is extremely rough. It is also fun, and comparatively safe". 

 He continues by stating that as a general rule at the time Russian aircraft did not have seat belts. "This is because the Russian didn't like them" and that only seldom did anyone know when the plane was about to land and nobody bothered to extinguish cigarettes during take-offs or landings. There were no emergency exits on domestic flights and some planes had one seat that was fitted with a seat belt that the author presumed was used if a passenger was sick or for some "old fashioned crank" who required it. Some planes apparently had seats that were equipped with half a seat belt; the buckle end was there but the other piece was missing.