The most famous British pre-war airliner. The first aircraft to fly in regular service anywhere in the world. The 8 built carried more passengers between London and the Continent than all other airliners combined, flew over 10 million miles (16 million kilometres) without hurting a passenger and were in the air for 100,000+ hours. Heracles was the first commercial aircraft in the world to fly one million miles, in July 1937. In 1935 Heracles was airborne on 361 of the 365 days. Heracles - the fleet's flagship, carried over 100,000 passengers - nearly a 5th of the total number of passengers carried by Imperial Airways during the airlines existence. Five of the eight airliners gave good service to the RAF during WWII, after serving for nine years with Imperial Airways. The last and greatest of bi-plane airliners. Nicknamed the "Flying Banana" due to the slightly upswept rear fuselage.