Royal India Mail

[Willy]

Merc Air's contacts on the sub-continent have indicated that the ViceRoy wants to start airmail services in India and Nepal. We've managed to obtain a copy of the proposed route in flight plan format which I've included. Biplanes and late 20ish transports are welcome to prove that they are capable of tranporting airmail along the route. More info to follow as it becomes available.

[Willy]

Found this Boeing 40 AirMail plane that was just sitting around. I'm sure Eastern won't miss it.

[Taco]

Hi All,:salute:

Picture: Getting ready for a test flight after having the plane disassembled in the US and shipped to India. Just hopping we got all the right parts in the right places. We purchased the plane at a very low price, it seem the owner got tried of dodging telephone polls, bad weather etc flying the mail in the US. Sure hope we make a few coins of the realm on this adventure. The price of shipping, and the purchase price just about clean out our war chest.

Taco

[PRB]

I bought this little Fokker from Juan Trippe's PAA outfit. Well, actually I do plan to buy it, that is. If it survives the India Mail Run. Hey I was going to purchase it, but there was nobody around! Well ok, so it was 01:00 am, more or less. But it was left unattended... Love the bycyle wheels. That's the bees knees, you have to admit.

[Moses03]

Ford makes a sturdy ship. Corrugated metal and all.

Half the battle was flying the darn thing all the way to India!

[Dangerousdave26]

We have had to do a fair amount of clean up and repair but this old girl is up for the trip.



Artist rendition of the cockpit

Notice the use of simicons even in the 1920/1930's

[MM]

Interested pilots can obtain an illustrated "Airman's Guide" to the Southern Route for the India Royal Mail. Go here: http://www.mediafire.com/?hvsk8ult5l82b93

[MM]

Going to celebrate India's first domestic commerical aviation flight in 1932. Carrying a bag of mail, JRD Tata flew a de Havilland DH.80 Puss Moth from Karachi to Bombay and his partner Nevill Vintcent (ex-RAF) continued on to Madras. They founded Tata Air Services, which during the 1930s built up a continental airmal system. (Tata later took on the leadership of Tata Industries and became a legend in his own country.)

JRD Tata's aircraft seems to have been a reddish orange Puss Moth, VT-AND. Here I'm flying Milton Shupe's beautiful G-AAZP--here undergoing preparations at Bombay's Juhu Aerodrome.

[Willy]

Redid the flightplan to match up with the Airman's Guide. Same name and if you've already got the old one installed, just let it overwrite.

Also Eddie Rickenbacher came poking around looking for a missing Boeing, so I swapped paints right quick....

[Dangerousdave26]

For those who still use FS Navigator a .fsn Plan

Based on Willy's plan

Attachment 22252

[Willy]

The first leg is done. VOTV to VOCC

Great flight with a great turnout! And quite the selection of aircraft too.

[srgalahad]

Typical weather - hot, hazy. The mail must go on!

Amongst the pioneers is the Fokker C.V once flown by intrepid Danes Botved and Olsen.

The long-distance flight
Two aircraft, R1 and R2 were prepared for the attempt, and they took off from Copenhagen airfield ‘Kløvermarken’ on 16. March 1926.
Of the two aircraft, R2 only made it to ‘Siam’ (Burma, now Myanmar) where it force-landed and was badly damaged. R2 was taken to Bangkok for repairs, and later returned to Denmark, but Botved continued towards Tokyo in R1 on 4. April.
Tokyo was reached on 1. June. For the next two weeks Botved and Olsen took part in an apparently endless series of celebrations, receptions, dinners, lectures and so on.
Attachment 22525

[Dangerousdave26]

A successful trip but the mail almost landed at the wrong airport.

Typical of Flight Simulator the weather started its cycle from 60 sm of vis to 2.5 sm with of course the last 30 nm being the 2.5 sm.

Luckily after everyone was down it cleared out.

[jkcook28]

For those that want to see me, I found it.
@ Fllightsim:

pt19av2.zip

and if you want sound to fly too:

pt19sounds.zip

[Willy]

I'm glad someone got a shot of P putting his engines down to where they are easy to work on.

[Willy]

Pretty good flight this time. Although the weather wasn't being it's most cooperative. Interesting conversation about foglights on sacred cows and flashlights taped to a goat's horns.

[MM]

Delightful trip with Willy, vW, Taco, and SrG. Bad jokes kept the aircrews alive. vW asks, "If they don't eat beef, why do Indians get excited about their New Delhi?" Kodaks show (a) vW climbing out of Cochin, (b) we skirted a tropical thunderstorm, (c) approaching Calicut, the low-lying fog enhanced the descent more interesting and (d) obscured airport.

[jkcook28]

I logged off at 9:30p as nobody was online...guess you got a late start.

[Dangerousdave26]

I logged off at 10:30 and missed it.

Opps them Mail will be late.

[Willy]

Well, I was running late and saw MM on there. Then Taco and vW popped in and Rob joined up. So we waited a bit and then took off.

[Willy]

Flew on over some mountains to Mysore. Which is aptly named considering the landing I made there...

[MM]

A couple more snaps from the slower Puss Moth. We had to climb up over the Western Ghats and on to the Deccan Plateau. The bulk of the Indian peninsula, the Deccan, stands some 2,000-3,000 feet above sea level. The mountains and plateau are a manifestation of the Deccan Traps, a series of massive volcanic eruptions and lava flows some 65 million years ago.

The last photo shows the colorful contingent of Puss Moth (MM), Fairchild PT-19 (JohnC), WACO Taperwing (Taco), and Boeing Model 40 (Willy). Mysore's international airport utilizes a grass field.

[Kowalski65]

Shame you couldnt addd my Stearman to that pic-alas your online flights are about 3am for me over this side of the pond
I got to Mysore the other night-the hops are a nice length that you can do a few at a time.Climbed away from a stormy coast, and still had trouble finding the field!

[Dangerousdave26]

Time to get caught up.

Departed Cochin for an early morning flight. The weather was good but that did not hold out.

About half way to Kaipur I ran into thunder storms and of course the typical 2.5 sm of vis at destination.

The landing was with out event.

[Dangerousdave26]

With the storm still raging on we decided to error on the side of Danger and just go for it.

After all the Mail must get threw.

As pointed out by MM there is a very nice grass strip here.