Mr & Mrs Thomas do Europe, 1927

[Ralf Roggeveen]

The Roaring Twenties. Mr Thomas was a successful American journalist who had often been in aeroplanes before.

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He had had a fairly interesting Great War, hanging out with some of the coolest characters around:

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He was pretty cool himself:

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Money was no object. The newspapers would pay for exciting tales of those crazy new European 'airlines' that didn't just carry mail - they also took 'passengers'! Who knows? Maybe the US will have some too, someday...

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'Okay, Thomas,' said the Ed, pushing back his eyeshade and chewing on yet another cigar, 'Sure money ain't no object. But everyone 'ready knows you're some kinda war-hero-daredevil-Rickenbacker-type character. You been in an airplane and you got shot at by the Red Baron, then you ain't afraid to fly them newfangled Briddish 'n' Dutch air-liner machines. And where's the female angle? Thomas, I'll tell you whats; Whats is, you can go, but you gotta take your Mrs, just to show it's safe for the Goils too. Geddit?'

After a great deal of argument (and a not ungenerous diamond mining visit to Tiffanys), Mrs T was finally persuaded to come to the Old World too. At least there would be London and Paris, plus the fun of the luxurious cruise over the Pond in the Mauretania. But where to begin on those European Airways?

Having spent so much time with Lawrence and Allenby in the War, Mr Thomas (unlike most Americans in the 1920s) was remarkably pro-British. So our old friend, romantic Croydon was the obvious place to start:

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Shall we follow their adventures through the magic of Golden Wings?

Unbelievably, they did go in winter! Some of the scenery, especially in the north, might prove attractive, quite apart from the funny old aeroplanes we'll travel in...

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Mr Thomas' book has a picture of this Handley Page at Croydon:

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It's G-EBMR, the 1926 W10 (HP30) City of Pretoria. We are going in:

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G-EBBI, Prince Henry, the slightly smaller W8b (HP18) of 1924. I had to ask my wife (a royal biography reader) about Prince Henry, imagining someone at the Battle of Agincourt maybe? But she tells me he was a son of King George V, which makes sense as the other two W8bs were called Princess Mary and Prince George. The original, blue livery of Imperial Airways, before they adopted the silver that we flew all the way to India in earlier this year.

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It'll be over two hours to our first (air)port of call.

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Everyone felt sick as soon as it was wobbling its way into the air...

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Mr Thomas wisely went up front and sat out in the open with the Captain and first officer! He immediately felt much better (Don't know about you, but I've often had the same experience in ships). Nor do we know whether poor Mrs Thomas managed to enjoy any of the spectactular views of London, including the Royal Naval College at Greenwich...


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...and the Medway Estuary above Rochester and Gillingham, where they approached the North Sea. Flying this way, roughly due East, you may already be able to guess our first stopover.

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[nigel richards]

Top photo No. 2 is 'El Orens' himself if I'm not mistaken.

Remarkable, larger than life man.
His autobiography; Seven Pillars of Wisdom makes for absorbing reading.
"a novel traveling under the cover of autobiography,":Charles Hill

If I correctly recall, T.E. Lawrence made a similar journey in a Vimy, as the one you are vividly illustrating.

I like these adventures.

Thanks for sharing with us Ralf.

[Sunny9850]

and as we yet again get to go on one of Ralf's wonderfully crafted adventures. The last one was worth being turned into a FS book IMHO. And almost caused me to miss a connecting flight once
since the wireless connection at KDEN was just a bit too slow to load the pictures. Would have made for a bit of an awkward explanation to the girlfriend why I missed the flight home as she already can't quite understand why I would still
"play" with FS at my age despite having a real airplane sitting in a hangar not 10 miles from the house

Looking forward to Mr & Mrs Thomas' trip.

Cheers
Stefan

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Thanks for your kind comments, chaps. We will be going quite near Nigel's corner of the continent before long... You'll have to tell Denver to improve their Wi-fi, Stefan!

The HP carrying the Thomases trundles on until eventually they sight the spectacular mountain scenery of Holland:

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Mr Thomas mentions that 'In order to save time, Captain Olley steers a course midway between Rotterdam and the Hague'; interesting that their pilot was the famous Gordon Olley who started his own airline, Olley Air Service Ltd, in 1933.

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The sort of view that would have been available, along with a deafening racket, once the passengers had got used to being up there:

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Strangely enough the Captain sits on the right in this airplane: possibly because the British designers were thinking of their cars with right-hand drive? Anyway, pilot on the left was not yet standardised.

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In the simulation I started to get worried because it was after 4 o'clock in the afternoon and darkness was rapidly falling. They did not light up airports like Christmas trees in those days, so it wasn't going to be too easy to find Schiphol, despite having done so many landings there in the past in the future (if you see what I mean).

After a bit of circling round, did manage to spot the place and still had enough fuel to bring her safely down.

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It would probably be most realistic to make these flights in the morning once the sun's up, using as much daylight as possible. You'll recall that Imperial used to leave at dawn in the Middle East, taking advantage of the clear light and cooler air. Here in Europe, however, passenger convenience (i.e. flying between breakfast and lunch) would have been paramount.

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The Croydon (Air Ministry) building that we saw was actually just being completed, not quite yet in use, when the Thomases were there. Not sure if Schiphol's famous terminal, seen here, had yet been completed - maybe Cees, who created this beautiful 1930s fs version, can answer that one?

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Don't know about the Thomases (he always makes out that he was really casual and brave about the everyday business of flying), but RR was fairly relieved to arrive in one piece!

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[Willy]

Ralf, glad to see you back in action!