Tag Archives: Imperial Airways

Imperial Airways Nile hotel boats

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I have had a request for information on Nile houseboats/steamers employed as overnight accommodation by Imperial Airways during the 1930s. I know of one boat used in this way, which was the Mayflower (pictured above), which belonged to Anglo-American Nile Company and which was moored at Rod al-Farag in Cairo for a number of years. My correspondent wants to know of any other boats used in this way, along with any photographs, contemporaneous accounts and descriptions, beginning and end-of-service dates, dimensions, etc – basically, anything that can help him flesh out the operations of the Imperial Airways Africa service in Egypt. If anybody has anything to offer, please post it in the comments bleow or contact me directly – my email address is in the “About” section of this site.

 

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Filed under Nile steamers, Travellers' tales

Heliopolis, the Clapham Junction of the African skies

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By coincidence, shortly after I posted the pic of the flying boat in front of the Winter Palace (see the post before last), a piece appeared on the BBC News website by Gerald Butt, titled Frank McClean: Forgotten pioneer of the sky. It’s about an Irish aviator who in 1913 flew from Alexandria to Khartoum and back, a journey that took exactly three months thanks to no fewer than 13 breakdowns. The seaplane he flew had been built by the Short brothers of Derbyshire, England, founders of one of the earliest aircraft manufacturing companies. They would become particularly notable for their flying boats – that’s one of their’s in the Luxor photo.

As torturous as the flight was, it showed that by using rivers and lakes for landings, Africa could be traversed by aircraft without the expense of preparing airstrips. The eventual result was that in 1931 Imperial Airways introduced a weekly England-to-Central Africa service. Egypt became a key stopover.

Imperial Airways

Butt writes: ‘Cairo became synonymous with all the glamour and luxury attached to the early years of commercial flight. As early as 1919, the head of civil aviation in Britain, Sir Frederick Sykes, had correctly predicted that “Egypt is likely to become one of the most important flying centres. It is on the direct route to India, to Australia, to New Zealand, while the most practicable route to the Cape and Central Africa is via Egypt.” A journalist the following year described Heliopolis as “the Clapham Junction of the Empire air routes”.’

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He goes on to describe how senior colonial civil servants would rest overnight in the grandeur of Shepheard’s. ‘The following morning, a launch would ferry passengers to the waiting Imperial Airways Empire flying boat and they would be regally wined and dined as the majestic airliner headed south.’

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How much more evocative could this photo be? That’s the magnificence of the Winter Palace there, lording it over the west bank of the Nile at Luxor. Moored in front of the hotel, low to the water is an elegant dahabiya, while occupying the foreground is the silvery hulk of an S-23 Empire class flying boat. Underneath the cockpit windows is stenciled the name Capella; this aircraft, built in 1937 carried mail on the Southampton to Kisumu route – Kisumu being a port city in western Kenya – dropping in on Egypt on the way. Later it flew in southeast Asia, where it was holed in Batavia harbour (now Jakarta) on 12th March 1939 and damaged beyond repair. (Photo courtesy of the Gaddis collection)

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Filed under Lost Egypt