It's happened to you...

[Ralf Roggeveen]

"The French are holding a Wet T-shirt Competition in the loo?" asks Charlene.

Never mind; here's the northernmost Greek island ("Another one?") of Thasos up ahead:



I tried to get a picture where you could see Samothrace and Thasos both in the same shot:



Just managed it. And now we cross over our earlier North/South Vienna - Athens flightpath back at Thessalonika:



Not sure if the Carters registered that fact...



They had to veer south to avoid Albania which was a totally isolated Stalinist dictatorship under the sinister Enver Hoxha for four decades until he died (1944 - 1985). Map showing the direct modern route over that mysterious country and into the heel of Italy near Brindisi:



Going that way wasn't a problem for us, though looking at the scenery you can see how the Albanians managed to remain cut off from the rest of the world:



TT picked up this typical Olympic DC-3 plying its trade in the area:



And now Albanian Antonovs down below, even rarer than Bulgarians!

[Ralf Roggeveen]

I'm starting to get a bit sick of AN-2s now. They seem to have taken over from Viscounts, but luckily (apart from in Cuba, where we're not going this time) this is the furthest west we'll find them.



The small sandy island of Sazan just off the Albanian coast. Tried to see Corfu (Kerkyra in Greek), further to the south, but it was definitely out of sight. Below we are leaving the Albanian coast near the port of Vlore. Mussolini actually conquered the whole country quite easily, and thought he'd have a go at Greece in 1940. Most amusingly the Greeks smashed the Fascisti and pushed them right back into Albania! Unfortunately the Nazis then came to help Musso and, despite aid from the British, the Greeks were beaten.



Italy very soon appears up ahead, just across a narrow part of the Adriatic:



Might as well deploy the Italian flag now - and here the country can be seen up from outside the aeroplane:



A striking shot which magically came up by itself. Gina in her little Piper out of Brindisi airport:



And of course big Italian planes are from their airline, Alitalia:



There's that DC-6 below us with Rome Centre ATC talking him down:



We'll be following...

[Ralf Roggeveen]

There's the Eternal City below:



St Peter's on the right. Of course we're going to the old airport at Ciampino, not the new Leonardo da Vinci. Runway Three Three up ahead:



But I'd been over-confident due to having made so many landings here. Was too high and too fast, so unfortunately it was another Go-around. Don't say I'm getting good at them.



But we got down OK, though about 40 minutes late. This place looks better every time I come here:



Certainly there was a major upgrade of the AI by Tom earlier this year, but even the scenery seems to improve:



It was one of the first 60s Scenery Project airports I installed and it took a while to get everything arranged properly:



Look out Rome, the Dutch are in town! It will be hot chocolate, Bible-reading and bed at 10 o'clock tonight!



This is towards 11.00 hrs and there were the expected Alitalias...



...but we also struck American gold from the two greatest US airlines of the day. Thought I had a map showing the Go-around, but as I can't find it we'll just have to take this opportunity to see the TWA "hostess" out of Mad Men:



She's topical enough. Her uniform sort of falls off (a bit too easy that time, Don). Her Connie again...



...and you know what's coming...

[Ralf Roggeveen]

...Pan Am, it goes without saying.



I like this planespotter's shot from behind the perimeter fence. Don Draper actually took his wife Betty on this aircraft to the very airport (or maybe da Vinci by '63? But we know it was a Pan Am 707 because their eldest son had a toy one when they got back from Italy). Planespotter steals cherrypicker shot:



No doubt about it, American aircraft were the sexiest.



But this time we found a good variety and lots of nations' airlines in at LIRA. The 707 seems to be hovering slightly above the tarmac, which must be useful when it comes to checking the tyres:



The sensible Dutch favoured Electras, but we will eventually be following our Convair Vincent's actual European route taken by those cheese-pickin' Carters in '59.



Decided to take pictures from both ends of the airport. One from the north looking south...



...and another from the south looking north:



Was going to leave it at that, but then noticed the Swissair leaving (I'm guessing for Zurich)...



...followed by the arrival of that Air India Connie:



You can see his tail(s) in the background to this final shot from that leg of the journey:



Back in Rome. I'll have to go visit the Gucci Bros and show them how my roll-on case is coping. No doubt the Carters will meanwhile be partying at the local 7th Day Adventist HQ.

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Found the missing Go-around map & analysis, showing unusual permission to land facing the other way:



You can also see how close we came to disaster! One of those 'Those trees are very close, aren't they?' moments, but we just cleared the wretched mountains.

Two very kind Italian Air Force officers, Captain d'Attomo and his colleague Giovanni Quai let me go in their Piaggio basic trainer of the time to have a look at default Rome city scenery:



There's St Peter's. The aeroplane was wobbling about all over the place (no wonder the Italians are such good pilots, it must be like learning to ride on a bucking bronco). The Pope's Castel St Angelo:



Originally Hadrian's tomb, though heaven knows what they did with him when those pesky popes moved in. Here's the famous Coliseum:



And a general view with plenty of historic buildings, plus the plane going fairly straight & level for a change:



I mean the last Piaggio I was in charge of was a scooter. Nice colour for the Dutch though. You can see the River Tiber. Why couldn't Microsoft do this for Istanbul too?

[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!

[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...