Mr & Mrs Thomas do Europe, 1927

[Volker Böhme]

Hi,

Nikko, this is a fantastic picture of Haaren!

Best regards,
Volker

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Xena/Xenia? What's an iota between friends? Nigel will confirm that XENOS is Greek for 'a stranger', but it also means 'a guest' - which is greatly to the credit of the Greeks. Anyway, I think the Kiwi TV people were vaguely thinking of the mythological Princess.

Nikko has very kindly sent me the 1929 Evere-Haren scenery, so we can have a little New Year's interlude and a Belgian aviation history lesson - what better way to start 2012?

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Backdated to the late '20s/early '30s, without any concrete to land/park on yet.

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You'll recognise an SM73 that SABENA bought from the Italians in 1935.

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Here's another shot of it:

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SABENA (Société Anonyme Belge d'Exploitation de la Navigation Aérienne) was established in 1923, replacing SNETA (Syndicat national pour l'étude des transports aériens) which had been set up in 1919. Civil aviation was greatly encouraged by the King, Albert I, seen here visiting the airport in the early '20s:

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From the same book, the SNETA fleet, hangar still under construction in the background:

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You can see DH9s, Rumpler CIVs and Breguet XIVs there.

Albert I was the brave king who heroically fought alongside his people in the 1914 German invasion. This famous cartoon appeared in the British magazine Punch:

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Kaiser: 'So you see, you've lost everything...'

King Albert: 'Not my soul.'

In 1940 his not-so-brave son, Leopold III, surrendered privately to the Germans without telling either his own Government, or the British and French (!). Punch had a cartoon showing him handing his sword to Hitler, who was saying 'You haven't lost anything,' to which Leopold replies: 'Only my soul.'

(Sadly, can't find a copy of the latter in any of my books, or on the net, though it's one of the great moments in political cartoon history).

[Ralf Roggeveen]

I suspect that the Belgian royal family has made sure that that cartoon does not appear anywhere on the internet...

Back to Mr & Mrs Thomas in their Jabiru, somewhere in France:

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Crossing the River Marne, or its canal extension, to be a bit more accurate.

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They flew towards the pretty, hilly Vosges region.

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There are a few lakes on the way and I thought I'd spotted one of them...

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Then realised it was more likely to be the first big patch of snow, not a body of water.

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Sure enough, the further east we flew, the more white-covered became the ground below.

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The blue columns above were how they showed the rev count (RPM) for the four motors.

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Maybe we're now going to have snow all the way to Turkey?!? In 2012 reality it has been a very mild winter (so far) here in northern Europe, after three bitter ones. in 2010 we had snow throughout November, December, January and into February last year. At least it still seems quite pleasant in the 1927 fs world.

[nigel richards]

Oh dash!
Why d'ya stop now, I was just going to make some popcorn for everyone!

Your knowlege of Greek Ralf, is spot on.
XENIA from the Greek word XENOS (stranger).

PHILOXENIA (hospitality) from the Greek; PHILO meaning friend (ΦΙΛΟΣ ) + XENIA literally meaning friend of strangers,
will be awaiting our tired travellers when arriving further South.

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Thanks, Nigel - we will also try to keep to your wise (Spartan?) advice to hold the high ground!

Flew south of Nancy in Lorraine and over the rolling Vosges, into Alsace...

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...towards Strasbourg.

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This was the scene of a lot of fighting in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War when artillery wasn't yet quite so effective and decisive as it would prove by 1914.

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In the 1870 war the French commanders made the mistake of letting large armies, trained entirely in attacking, get besieged inside the fortified cities of Strasbourg and Metz.

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These sieges didn't tie down many German troops, so their main force was able to press on to Sedan and decisively defeat Napoleon III's army (September 1 1870).

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Looking at the situation before that battle, General Ducrot, one of the better French commanders, made the memorable remark: Nous sommes dans un pot de chambre, et nous y serons emmerdés...*

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Successfully made it in rather less than the predicted 3 hours in the Jabiru, easily spotting the nice (unlikely) concrete runway at Entzheim which stood out clearly in the snow.

*'We're in a sh1te pot and we're gonna get shat on.'

[KellyB]

Pray tell, what is this aircraft??

Not at all familiar with it.

[Volker Böhme]

Thanks, Nigel - we will also try to keep to your wise (Spartan?) advice to hold the high ground!


...towards Strasbourg.

Successfully made it in rather less than the predicted 3 hours in the Jabiru, easily spotting the nice (unlikely) concrete runway at Entzheim which stood out clearly in the snow.
...

Hi Ralf,

the period airfield for Strasbourg would be Aerodrome de Polygone, about 4 km south of the city center. Entzheim was built only after WWII.

Best regards,
Volker

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Hi Ralf,

the period airfield for Strasbourg would be Aerodrome de Polygone, about 4 km south of the city center. Entzheim was built only after WWII.

Best regards,
Volker

That's what I thought, Volker, but Lowell Thomas' 1928 book European Skyways does say: 'Arriving at Entzheim we found the aerodrome lit up by flashing boundary lights, lights from the open hangars, and a huge moveable searchlight on wheels. A four-engined Jabiru monoplane with its enormous thick overhead cantilever wing was "on the line," fire shooting from her exhausts.' (p.129)

However, I admit that that's for the next stage to Zurich, so they may have arrived at Polygone, then driven over to Entzheim. You will also note that, despite my recently vowing never to fly in the dark in the 1920s again, they took an early experimental night flight (Coming to your PC soon)...

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Before turning to that, here's a wonderful New Year's present to share: Propliner Flyer Magazine

This has been created by Johan Dees and is most excellent if you're into Retro fs flying. Quite apart from fantastic contemporary airline ads, and ads from the '50s and '60s that just reference flying, there are several great articles. These include one to upgrade weather in fs9 and make your propliner shake about in the wind more realistically. Might have a go at that some day, since I've often thought there was room for improvement. He has also previewed FLIGHT (not the magazine, the new Microsoft flying game) and says it's a complete waste of time as a simulator; as I said, just a 'flying game' and not even much of an improvement on FSX in terms of graphics. And of course they've dumbed it all down to sell more units. Anyway, do read what JD has to say about it, confirms what you may well have already suspected.

There is also an fs humour page including the line: Reality is a hobby for getting away from flight simming (or something like that) - I wish I'd thought of that gag!

Hope the link works, highly recommended.

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Time to do that night flight to Basel. Anyone else had the disconcerting experience of trying in vain to find Basle Airport in the fs9 drop down menu under Switzerland, only to finally discover that it's in France?!? The modern airport is LFSB Bale-Mulhouse, jointly-run by the two countries, but on the French side of the border. Is this situation unique on the planet? Having your airport in another country?

It probably wasn't the case in 1927; Later, when leaving, Mr Thomas mentions that 'Basle flying-field is on the edge of the Rhine, so near that in taking off an aeroplane might quickly be transformed into a submarine.' (p.142 ha, ha). I've used the modern, default airport site in France, but we can now accurately go in the Jabiru (if you ignore its Danish registration again) and we can leave at 3 o'clock in the morning as Lowell and the long-suffering Mirabella Thomas did...

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Here's a map to show the next few stopovers they made on their trip east:

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France - Switzerland - Austria - Germany - Austria again. This is a sensible way to avoid the worst of the mountains, though we should see them off our starboard side, at least in the daytime.

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I was glad to have practiced in that Jabiru in daylight on the previous leg...

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As you can see, it was pretty dark, though at least those Alps were safely distant. (The lights of Strasbourg in the picture above).

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He calls his chapter on this bit 'A night flight up the Rhine', and that's exactly what it was, effectively travelling due south and following the great river. Interestingly enough, after about half an hour, they actually saw 'the headlight of the northbound Jabiru' (p.131) coming towards them. There was a bit of GW3 AI flying around, but unfortunately none of them came close enough to replicate that - and I had plenty of other things to think about.

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Main anxiety was the knowledge that the airfield would NOT be clearly lit up in this simulation...

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But my luck held because one of the AIs (a Ryan I believe) landed there just ahead of me, so I followed him in.

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Phew, made it in one piece!

[Volker Böhme]

Hi,

the Airport at Basel-Mulhouse was constructed only afterr WWII (I am pretty sure about that), the original site was at Basel-Birsfelden (Sternenfeld) east of the town's center. Innsbruck is still at the origial location, I think. Munich's location prior to Riem was at Oberwiesenfeld, converted to the 1972 Olympic park. Viennas airport was at Aspern (LOWA), but that closed in the 70's, too, when a crosswind runway was contructed at Schwechat.

Best regards,
Volker

[KellyB]

Pray tell, what is this aircraft??

Not at all familiar with it.

Is it a secret? (Chuckle)

[Ferry_vO]

It's the Farman Jabiru, by Jens Kristensen. You can find it at Flightsim.com.

[KellyB]

It's the Farman Jabiru, by Jens Kristensen. You can find it at Flightsim.com.

Thanks. Off to get it now.

[Volker Böhme]

Hi Ralf,

had a thorough look again at the Strasbourg site, and I have to admit that I couldn't find anything entirely convincing for or against Enzheim/Polygon. Didn't have much time to look, though. I'm quite sure about Basel, Munich and Vienna, though.

Best regards,
Volker