Mr & Mrs Thomas do Europe, 1927

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Sorry Kelly, didn't notice your question, I was so quick to correct Volker! Good luck with the Jabiru - I explained its name a bit earlier on in the story.

Will try to use historic airport sites if humanly possible, Volker - any information is useful. There was nothing in GW3/fs9 near enough to Basel to substitute for the modern Bale-Mulhouse, however. Next stop Zurich and there'll be some nice German aircraft coming up soon...

[Volker Böhme]

Hi,

try Zürich-Dübendorf, the recently closed military airbase. Kloten was yet another one of the arports built after WWII.

Best regards,
Volker

[Ralf Roggeveen]

I'm afraid it was too late and I'd already flown to the site of the modern airport (LSZH). The Thomases appear to have gone in a Swiss-registered Junkers of some kind (probably an Ad Astra G.23), but I decided to use a Swiss-registered Dutch aircraft...

Switzerland had three air companies in 1919: Aero-Gesellschaft Comte, Mittelholzer & Co. Tourisme SA and Frick & Co. The last of these changed its name to Ad Astra AG by the end of that year. This is the Fokker F.VIIa of their rival, Balair (Basler Luftverkehrs AG) which was formed in 1925:

Attachment 55987

The two were, of course, merged into Schweizerische Luftverkehr AG, the famous Swissair in 1931.

Attachment 55988

This airplane CH-157 was registered with Balair in April 1927, so may well have been there in Basel later that year when the Thomases showed up.

Attachment 55989

It remained as CH-157 with Swissair in '31, getting the new style registration HB-LBO in 1934.

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It actually stayed in service until 1950 before a well-earned retirement to the Verkehrhaus Museum in Luzern.

Attachment 55991

This flight was straightforward enough using the radio and IFR, although they sent us round by a very different route from the original flightplan:

Attachment 55992

Never mind, it's always best to put your trust in ATC when you've got them to help...

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This part of northern Switzerland, the Aargau region, is still nice and flat for rickety old aeroplanes. The Rhine turns east at Basel and marks the border with Germany.

Attachment 55994

(Yes, I know it really turns NORTH at Basel, but you see what I mean when we're travelling UP it).

[Okami]

Nice to see CH-157 - I just completed a thread about what happened with its 'sister' CH-159, AKA Aviodome's H-NACT/AviodRome's H-NACP - http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...d-bound-Fokker

[Ralf Roggeveen]

For the next stretch, due west across the border into Austria, Mr Thomas mentions 'our Junkers monoplane'. I think this was probably an F.13, but sadly there isn't any fs version of that important aircraft. We do, however, have Ralf Kreibich's beautiful W.33 which makes a perfect stand-in:

Attachment 56457

The knob to the left of the throttle is Mixture Control, important when you're flying in this period:

Attachment 56458

No room for any radio, so you'll have to navigate for yourself in one of these.

Attachment 56459

Thomas pads it out with a lot of guff about Hannibal crossing the Alps, etc., though that was much further south and of course he was aiming for Italy.

Attachment 56460

On our left is Lake Constance, the Bodensee in German. He briefly mentions that a place very important in 1920s aviation lies over the other side of the lake in Wurtemberg, the far south of Germany...

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This is Friedrichshafen, home of the fabled Zeppelin!

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But Lowell Thomas does not dwell on Zeps. Being very pro-British, he may well have not wanted to offend readers who would still have thought of them as BABY-KILLERS...

Attachment 56463

...they flew on.

[Ralf Roggeveen]

No such qualms for us, however, safe behind our home computers in the following Century. We will nip over the lake and take a quick look at Bill & Lynn Lyons' fantastically brilliant* LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin:

Attachment 56464

This remains far & away the finest airship simulation you can get, and of course it's fully compatible with Golden Wings.

Attachment 56465

I've sometimes thought about doing a Round the World flight with it, BUT...

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...though she's almost therapeutic to fly, once you get the hang of it, it's very, very slow.

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Also, a lot of the real 1929 RTW was not only done at a crawl, but over mind-bogglingly boring ocean and a great deal of Mongolian and Siberian tundra.

Attachment 56468

Furthermore, by its very nature, the airship has hardly any (and extremely far flung!) stopovers: Lakehurst - Friedrichshafen - Tokyo - Los Angeles - back to Lakehurst.

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*(Yes, I like it).

[Okami]

Hi Ralf,

Actually, there is an F.13 available on www.classicwings.net: http://www.classicwings.net/freeplanes/f13/f13.html Both a wheeled and float version are available there.

Hope this helps,

Nikko

[Volker Böhme]

... 'our Junkers monoplane'...

Hi,

I had to look it up first, but Junkes actually did build a biplane type, the J4 in 1917. On the other hand, Imperial Airways barely used any monoplanes before the mid-30's. The Atalanta probably was the first relevant domestic type, and IA only started for real with modern aircraft when it introduced the Empire Flying Boat in 1936.

Nikko, thanks for the link, I was about to look it up myself. Fine planes, these, and a fine site. Quite a few interesting aircraft.

Best regards,
Volker

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Thanks, gentlemen - that'll keep me busy and maybe take the Thomases some of the way across the Balkans. Never found the Classic Wings F.13 before. Junkers biplane would be interesting to see, though I think he only said 'monoplane' because they were less well-known at the time. Herr Doktor Ing. Junkers was convinced that corrugated aeroplanes were best - apparently it was noticed that Ju56s flew BETTER in Russia when they were made more aerodynamic by icing over -!

A few more screenies of the Graf to make up for Lowell not saying much about the real thing when they came so close to it:

Attachment 56556

Since life's too short for puttering over the world's great oceans, the Lyons' have thoughtfully provided Saved Flights that will take you straight to the RTW stopovers (+ Rio in Brazil above):

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Approaching NYC.

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Lakehurst, with The United States Navy At Home.

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The (nearly finished) Golden Gate Bridge.

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Back over Lake Constance.

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Dropping ballast to gain height.

[Ralf Roggeveen]

OK, that's enough about airships; let's get the Thomases in their Junkers over the Swiss/Austrian border:

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We are heading for the famous Tirol, crossing the (good skiing) Lechtaler Alpen - the (good climbing) Berner Alpen to the south are much higher.

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One of your most useful instruments on a flight like this is the simple clock...

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...If we've been flying in this direction at that speed for half an hour, then it must be down there somewhere up ahead...

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(Usually works).

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In this case I'd worked out that we needed to get over - or round - the mountains and fly down the valley of the Inn till we spotted the town.

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This reminds me of a good New Yorker cartoon I saw many years ago and never forgot. There's a whole crowd of people staring expectantly towards a mountain. A little man right at the back is speaking to one worried-looking member of the crowd. He's saying:

[Ralf Roggeveen]

"I've just heard. She won't be coming round the mountain when she comes."

Attachment 56849

In this case it's a matter of coming round the mountain and locating the Austrian airport.

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Managed to spot a bit of runway sticking out up there.

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I'd also calculated the descent accurately, though you always have to be extra careful when a good deal of the ground is at your altitude or higher...

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A good theory is that aeroplanes are likely to go for the flattest bit, somewhere near the river...

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This proved correct!

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[Ralf Roggeveen]

The next leg, north to Munich in Germany, should be quite straightforward once you get over the Karwendelgebirge mountains and out of the Inn Valley. The Oberbayern (Upper Bavaria) region of Germany is almost as flat as Holland (though it is, by contrast, 1500 feet above sea level). Thought of doing it in this Dornier Merkur, a type which the Thomases definitely flew in:

Attachment 57188

This is the Ad Astra one which in 1927 reality would have gone from Zurich - Stuttgart - Halle/Leipzig - Berlin. There's no 2D screen, so you have to fly from the VC:

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You can see how we're hemmed in on all sides by the high ground:

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I began to appreciate why Imperial Airways were so careful about choosing a route all the way to India that avoided ever having to climb over mountains, as flown last year.

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All nicely lined up ready to go when this crazy red AI Waco appeared!

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I wondered whether he was going to land OVER us, or if they'd tell him to abort...

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He did Go Around, phew!

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And we took off and climbed out of there quite nicely...

[Sunny9850]

I love the big Zeppelin airships and Bill Lyons creation is certainly among the best if not the best available. And I even started a few times to do her famous RTW voyage. But like you I always ended up scrapping the effort when confronted with the reality of just how long it would take to complete.
And while I do not have an aluminium piano in the lounge, but could still occasionally retreat to other things besides steering the big cigar through the air, I just can't bring myself to finish the job. Maybe if I could walk out into the engine gondolas and check the oil on the massive Maybach (??) diesel engines or stroll through the well appointed interior and talk to the well to do travelers I could stick it out.

http://www.mediafire.com/?bcj7rbbwzylob
These are a few pictures from a few years back now when I visited the Zeppelin museum in Friedrichshafen ... unfortunately after the Dornier Museum my camera batteries were dead and I did not get any of the interior of the partial fuselage you can walk through in that museum.

But I did get a picture at the Dornier museum of the Merkur you were flying in.


Cheers
Stefan

[Cees Donker]

Hi Ralf,

Just found your thread (didn't have time for internet the past three weeks, and didn't have internet at all the past week), otherwise I could have sent you a basic scenery for Brussels, anno 1929, backdated from 1961. It was the old terminals at Haren, which were opened in 1929 (previously, the terminal was a wooden barrack), which was Brussels' civilian airport until Melsbroek opened in 1947. Afterwards, the airport continued to be used as a Sabena/Belgian Air Force maintenance base until 1956, and as a GA airport with limited use until its complete closure in 1961, after which the terminal became the Belgian Air Force administrative HQ.



Unfortunately, the very nice Art Deco buildings were demolished 4 years ago, as the new NATO HQ is being built there (the old NATO HQ was built in the late 1960s over what were Haren's runways). This means the only buildings remaining of this old airport are the SABCA aircraft factory buildings, which were originally located on the northern edge of the landing grounds (the runways only came with the Germans in 1940). Some taxiways also survive, as they have been incorporated in an extension of the municipal cemetary, which was originally located on the western edge of the airfield. Also surviving is a very small section of one of the runways, just east of the NATO HQ, as wel as sections of the taxiway which connected Haren with the nearby Melsbroek Air Base (present-day Zaventem/Brussels Airport) - built by the Germans, but mainly used post-war to taxi aircraft between Haren and Melsbroek, as the former didn't have long enough runways for types such as the DC-4 and DC-6, or for military jets such as the Meteor or F-84G, which were maintained at the SABCA plant at Haren as late as 1956. (In 1956, SABCA opened a new plant at Gosselies/Charleroi, the present 'Brussels South Airport').

The terminal buildings were built by Harry Biard, as part of our upcoming Central Europe 1961 scenery (Haren is just 2 miles west of Brussels Airport).

Nikko

So that's what Harry is doing at the moment! He started on some additional scenery for Amsterdam some time ago. I must convince him to take that up again. It looked excellent, just like this does. And now I'll stop hi-jacking your beautiful thread Ralf.

Cees

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Wow! You have been to the Holy Grail, Sunny; thanks for the link. You're right: LZ127 had five 580 hp Maybach VL2 12 cylinder engines.

I forgot to show interior shots of the Lyons version:

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The bridge

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You learn how to use these dials properly and blow the right whistle at the right time!

Monochromed a few screenies a while ago:

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Put yourself in, steering it...

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Look out! This wicked lady is always trying to seduce you away from concentrating on the flight...

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While the steward keeps an eye on everybody and makes sure your glass (or coffee mug in my case) is never empty...

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Neville Chamberlain and Ernst Rohm are having secret talks in there...

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...It's beyond a mere flight simulator!