The Air Stations of Europe

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 164, 1 October 1927, Page 24 (Supplement)

The Air Stations of Europe

Contmemta! Flying-Men Make for Well-Charted Parking-Places

S HOUGH commercial aviation is only seven years old, any one of a score of European cities already points proudly to its airport, the starting point and landing place of planes providing regular aerial passenger and freight services. It seems probable that airport will become the regular destination in English of this new type of terminus, though the Parisians are still hesitating whether to call their Le Bourget terminus “aeroport” or “aerogare” (aerial station) and the London aerial centre at Croydon, just outside London, is usually termed the Croydon Aerodrome. But the Germans have painted in enormous letters across the front of the main building of the Tempelhof air terminus at Berlin the word Flughafen (airport). Of all the European airports the most celebrated as well as the most important are those at Le Bourget, a few miles outside Paris; at Croydon, a suburb of London, and at Tempelhof, some three miles from the heart of Berlin. Le Bourget and Croydon surpass Tempelhot in world fame for two reasons; they are the termini of the best-known of all aerial routes—that between Paris and London—and their names were flashed all over the world, to appear in countless newspaper headlines and moving-picture captions, after Lindbergh had paid them a visit last May. Le Bourget is about seven miles from the centre of Paris. It was famous 50 years before it became France’s great centre of aerial traffic because of the superb defence put up there by a handful of French soldiers when the Germans were besieging Paris in the Franco-Prussian War.

Passengers who intend to journey by airplane from Le Bourget are conveyed there by motor-bus from the centre of Paris. On arrival they and their baggage are deposited at a small building in the rear of the field. Each passenger and each piece of freight is weighed—-the total weight, passengers and baggage allowable on a plane between Paris and London, for instanceis two tons. Then the passengers’ luggage is examined by the French Customs officials and within a few minutes porters have placed it on the concrete-covered area which serves the same purpose at Le Bourget that a railway station platform or the dock of a steamship line does elsewhere. Meanwhile, a gigantic biplane, with a preliminary roar from its great motors, has pulled up to the edge of the concrete. Its pilot, who sits in a small cockpit at the very nose of the plane, climbs down for a final look at his machine. A white-jacketed steward opens the door of the car. Twenty wicker chairs are revealed, arranged like the seats in an American railway car, each at a window, with an aisle down the middle. The passengers enter. The hand luggage and mail are stuffed into the “hold.” There is a whirr from the motors, the chocks are removed from before the rubber-tyred wheels and the “ship” begins to move. When a plane arrives at Le Bourget from London or some other aerial terminus, the field staff rush forward to

escort it to the “dock” and anchor it with the customary wooden chocks. Porters hurry back and forth, carrying baggage in wheelbarrows. Customs and imigration officials examine valises and passports. Buses operated by the aerial companies drive up to take the incoming passengers to Paris. Mechanics go over the plane and replenish its fuel and oil for the next journey. In a two-storey building in the centre of the line of hangars are the

Customs office, police station and a good restaurant. Close at hand is another building containing a waiting room, post office and telephones. On the second floor are the offices of the director of the Paris “airport” and his staff. There is a central heating system for the hangars, a garage, oil and gasoline reservoirs, wireless station and an emergency electrical plant for lighting buildings and field, a medical establishment and a series of small buildings with offices for the flying companies and reception rooms for their patrons. Extensive precautions have been taken at Le Bourget to insure the safety of passengers. A large light, much like a seacoast lighthouse, about 90ft. high, stands near the northeast extremity of the airdrome. It is lighted at sundown and is extinguished four hours later, unless a plane is expected at a later hour, when the light is kept going until the plane arrives or news is received of its arrival elsewhere. The rays of the light, which can be seen on clear

nights for 40 miles, flash in Morse signals the letter X, the designated for Le Bourget* * An lene light near by is kept for use in ease the principal one "tv?!' 1 fail. The roofs of all the han«« 4 other buildings are marked with acl lights, and the antenna of the as well as near-by factory f w» ,e!s are indicated by vertical striS?®*! j electric lamps. ss of i A vane in the form of a white t I a black background, lighted at ni v’ | shows the aviators the directing . j the wind. A pilot arriving at nt ! drops a green rocket from a iof about 900 ft. If the way is cle. ' j green light is flashed from near ti, 3 | -controle” and the projectors in„„ inating the landing field are turned . Those wishing to reach London'. | airport board a motor-car, much r» sembling American sightseeing bus*!’ starting from the main office of t? Imperial Airways, close to Trafalra* Square, and are transported in hap a hour or so to the Croydon airdrop about ten miles to the south. ’ From the motor-car which has jn,t brought them from the centre of Lo^

. don passengers intending to fly from Croydon over the English Channel : enter the waiting room, which ia one of the wooden shacks still doing duty ; —all of these, by the way, are to be ■ pulled down when the new buildings ■ are put into commission. After each \ passengei and piece of luggage has l | been weighed, the total weight to be [ carried —pilot, engineer, passenger r and luggage—is entered upon a load - sheet. If the total on the load sheet goes beyond the maximum allowed. , part of the weight must be loaded into , a smaller plane, which leaves the airport at the same time. For nocturnal starts and arrhuls at l Croydon there are lour powerful s searchlights, each of 750,000 c£.ndle- - power. When a plane is expected after i dark these send their rays into the , air until the plane is overhead, when » the rays are trained cn the ground. ? flooding it with light and thus facili ? fating as much as possible the pilots • 1 landing.