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A short history of Imperial Airways and its aircraft.
In 1923 a Government Committee was appointed to review the policy of subsidising airlines.
It duly reported and recommended that the main existing aircraft companies should be merged into one
organisation, with the mission of developing British Commercial Air Transport on an economic basis, and
creating a company which would be strong enough to develop Britain's external air services. As a result,
Imperial Airways Limited was formed on 31st March 1924 and on 1st April 1924 it took over the aircraft
and services of:
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Handley Page Transport Limited
Fleet: Three Handley Page W8B's - 'Princess
Mary', 'Prince Henry' and 'Prince George'.
The Instone Air Line Limited
Fleet: Vickers Vimy Commercial - 'City of
London', and four de Havilland DH 34's.
The Daimler Airway
Fleet: Three de Havilland DH 34's.
British Marine Air Navigation Company
Limited
Fleet: Two Supermarine Sea Eagle amphibian
flying boats.
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A de Havilland DH34 'City of New York' of the Instone Air Line over Croydon in 1923.
Click here for a larger picture and description.
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Imperial Airways Limited inherited 1,760 miles of cross-Channel routes, and out of the collection of aircraft, most were obsolete and five unserviceable. The landplane operations were based at Croydon Airport which opened on 25th March 1920.
Imperial Airways had the task of reopening British European air routes and also developing air communications between Britain and the Empire. Both routes required aircraft to be designed to operate them, but the Empire routes would additionally require major planning, and flying conditions (varying extremes of climate, etc) which until that point had not been regularly experienced.
Industrial troubles with the pilots delayed the operation of services until 26th April 1924, when a daily London-Paris service was opened with a DH34. Thereafter began the task of expanding the routes between England and the Continent, Southampton-Guernsey on 1st May, London-Brussels, Ostend and Cologne on 3rd May, and a summer service from London to Basle and Zürich via Paris.
The first new airliner commissioned by Imperial Airways, was the Handley Page W8F 'City of Washington' on the 3rd November 1924. In the first year of operation the company flew 853,042 miles, carried 11,395 passengers and 212,380 letters.
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LONDON - CAPE TOWN
De Havilland Rapide,
July 1st 1980.
This first day cover was one of 1000 copies
carried by de Havilland Rapide G-AIYR from
London to Cape Town and return, retracing the
route of the Survey Flight made by Alan Cobham
for Imperial Airways 1925/26.
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The Beginning of the Empire Routes
As the name 'Imperial Airways' implied, the organisation had been formed to cast its eyes on more distant horizons than the boundaries of Europe. It was charged with the task of pioneering a chain of long-distance intercontinental air services linking the countries of the British Empire with each other and with the United Kingdom. Between the two World Wars it achieved that aim.
The start of the Empire routes occurred when surveys of the Cairo-Karachi air route had been completed by 1st October 1925. In 1926 there was a large increase in the company's fleet: A Handley Page W9 'City of New York', and four Handley Page W10s 'City of Melbourne', 'City of Pretoria', 'City of London' and 'City of Ottawa' were all christened at Croydon airport on 31st March. On 16th July the new Armstrong Whitworth Argosy, the airline's first three-engined airliner which introduced a new standard of roominess into air passenger flying came into service. On 1st May 1927, an Argosy inaugurated the world's first 'named' air service - it was the London-Paris 'Silver Wing' service on which meals were served. (Other European routes on which Argosies operated were those to Basle, Brussels and Cologne.)
On 20th December the first of the de Havilland Hercules airliners (ordered by Imperial Airways for service on overseas routes) left England for their new route from Egypt to India.
In January 1927 a service was opened between Cairo and Basra, in the Persian Gulf. To solve the difficulty of navigating across the trackless desert between Palestine and Baghdad, a furrow, several hundred miles long, was ploughed in the sand. It was probably the longest furrow ever ploughed. Further links were added at either end of the route and on 30th March 1929 the Short Calcutta (which was the first of Imperial Airways' flying boats to be built in 1928, designed to operate the Mediterranean sectors of the long-distance routes from the United Kingdom to Australia and South Africa), left London for Karachi on the first through air service between the United Kingdom and India. Later in the same year this route was extended to Jodhpur and Delhi.
On 16th June 1930, an internal service linking London, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool was run three times a week. This service connected with European services at Croydon and continued until 20th September when a lack of support closed the route.
In April 1930 the surveys of the Cairo-Cape Town route were completed, and on 28th February 1931 the first part of this route was opened with a weekly service between London and M'wanza in Tanganyika. Calcutta flying boats were used on the trans-Mediterranean section and south along the Nile from Cairo.
On 1st April 1931, the first experimental London-Australia air mail flight took place. The mail was transferred to an Australian aircraft at Koepang in the Netherlands East Indies, and it arrived on the 29th April in Sydney.
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