FAREWELL TO FLYING-BOATS
By HERBERT ADDISON
THEY say the flying-boats are going out of service at the end of the year. I hope this is not true ; but, if it is true, at least let us make sure, that these beautiful aircraft receive some fitting valediction. There need be no impartial assessment of payloads and landing speeds. If a man is not upon oath in a lapidary inscrip- tion, neither need he shun a little warmth of feeling when writing about the "C "-class flying-boats. The first time I saw one was at Heliopolis in the spring of 1937. In those days the R.A.F. in Egypt used to give an annual display on the lines of the Hendon air pageant. They were friendly, pleasant affairs, not too exclusively military; anything that would fly might be on view if it seemed likely to interest the guests. Already, residents in the Nile Valley were beginning to take as personal an interest in aircraft as they did in steamships ; the names 'Hannibal' or Satyrus ' might mean as much to us as ' Rawalpindi ' or 'Otranto' or Esperia.' So, when on this occasion the R.A.F. promised to show one of the new Empire flying-boats we had heard so much about, there was a good deal of expectancy. But I hardly think we were prepared for anything quite so majestic and shapely and altogether splendid as 'Capella.' It flew once down the course and disappeared. Taking our hearts with it? Anyhow, it was out of sight before anyone could judge whether such a phrase was extravagant or not. Soon afterwards the "C "-class aircraft were in regular service.
It was only when the war came to Egypt in 1940 that we learned what comfort and reassurance the flying-boats were capable of giving. They still helped to carry our letters from England ; nor did we complain because so-called Air Mail letters took six weeks on the way. It was the visible calm regularity of the service that was so heartening. The flying-boats would sweep directly over my flat with hardly more than a well-mannered rustle. The windows of the flat would vibrate very gently. If I went out on to the balcony to watch a boat, tail on, as it made its run in to alight on the Nile two miles to the north, I saw it sink out of sight behind the houses as steadily as a lift.
So it is admirers of such long standing as this who are now likely to find the richest reward as passengers. Having weathered the war, ' Castor ' and ' Corsair ' and ' Caledonia ' have resumed their proper livery, and on their voyagings they let you see how in other ways the world is trying to regain at least a normal appearance. Naturally they do this all the better because of their affinity with water—their direct dependence upon water. How much happier they are in this respect than land-based aircraft, which at one moment are upheld by the impalpable air and a minute later must rely for support v )on half a square mile of solid and extremely expensive concrete. Such a transition is altogether too crude ; it is inelegant. And what opportunities for gay pageantry the flying-boats gain from their aquatic leanings! From the moment the boat prepares to alight, it is linked to its crew and its passengers by the friendly discipline of an unvarying ritual. Already there is a premonitory feeling in the lowered note of the engines. Like some ministrant, the purser or the steward intones, "Safety-belts on, please." Into the ensuing expectant hush there now breaks the whine of the motors running out the landing-flaps. Then, as the keel touches the water, you have the feeling that gentle but competent hands have received the boat into their charge. For it really is a boat now, and, as it sinks more deeply into the water, great sheets of spray rise above the windows on either hand. At last the engines and the waters alike fall mute. In the satisfied silence of a ceremony flawlessly completed, the boat lies at rest.
The next sequence begins when the launch comes alongside. Now we are all going to play at sailors. Although we may be afloat on the Upper Nile, hundreds of miles from salt water, the Red Ensign flies from the launch. The ebony-black crew wear white uniforms and sailor caps. The flying-boat, too, has put out its bunting. From a stumpy /bast there flutters the flag of Britain's aerial merchant service —a new variation on a traditional theme, in which the blue of the sky and the blue of the sea enclose the Union Jack. Then there is the Royal Air Mail pennant, and, as etiquette demands, the national flag of the adjacent territory. But after the launch has drawn away a little you notice that 'Corsair' or Coorong ' has imperceptibly changed its aspect. When you stepped through its port, its flank seemed to rise above you, cliff-like, in true liner fashion. What are you reminded of now? Surely of some fat, jolly sea monster— some mythological dolphin or triton. If it is not actually looking at you now with a knowing air, it was doing so until you surprised it in the act. Then you realise that what you thought was the creature's eye—an eye that might wink at any moment—is no more than the Airways company's emblem painted on the bow.
When we get to Beira there are real liners to be seen. As the launch speeds past them on the way to the landing-stage there comes a glorious sense of restored freedom. The guns have gone from the poops ; bright colours have returned to the funnels and upper works ; the ships are themselves again. Amid this tropical glow and glitter who can doubt that the seas are free once more? Read the names of the ports of registry—Glasgow, Liverpool, San Francisco. How symbolical is this Swedish tanker! Regard its shapely off-white hull. The Swedes cannot even make a tanker look ugly ; and, as though by instinct, the blue-and-gold ensign drapes itself in gracious folds. It is the overpowering sense of solidarity the steamships give that turn the mind again in wonder- ment to the flying-boat, now far astern and riding the waters like a seagull. How could its own eggshell fragility ever create in us so confident a feeling of security?
But of course it would be unworthy to admire nothing but aircraft and great steamers. The particular point about this run from Cairo to Durban is that it is above all a journey for hero-worshippers. We do not suppose that the flying-boat finds its way by itself across the desert and the swamp and the ocean. That delicacy of touch that brings it down so imperceptibly upon the water—that is a human touch. Our captain may take it all as a matter of course, but we passengers do not. We are not misled by the deceptive diffidence with which his second-in-command says: "We are just going to cross the Equator, if it interests you." If it interests us, indeed!
Nor do we imagine that the boat built itself. *We do not need the makers' unobtrusive name-plate to tell us what excellent designers and craftsmen there must have been at Shorts' works at Rochester. As for the great names below there on the ground, some can be read in print and some can not. A little marble plaque confronts passengers ;who step ashore at Wadi Halfa to drink tea or lemonade while the aircraft refuels. It records that Gordon Pasha and Kitchener Pasha frequently used this rest-house. As you approach Omdurman three hours later, you ought to recall the name of Winston Spencer Churchill. And so the roll continues— at Lake Victoria, Speke ; at the Zambesi, Livingstone ; at Mozam- bique, Vasco da Gama. If, then, the days of 'Castor' and 'Corsair and ' Caledonia ' and their fellows are numbered, their destiny has been an honourable one.
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