Wings Over the World: Imperial Airways Empire Terminal, Victoria
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- Опубліковано 30 вер 2024
- The Art Deco air terminal in Victoria with no airport.
For more on the terminal at Waterloo: • Helicopters from Waterloo
ko-fi.com/jago...
/ jagohazzard
Imagine being able to travel
Surely one of the best channels on UA-cam - I kick myself on a daily basis for not finding it sooner
Thanks! I’m glad you did find it!
Stop hurting your self though
its good to be flexible
Most important :
Il found YOU…!
Being a self employed gardener i have many different clients. Talking to one elderly lady that i work for one day, she told me she used to be a stewardess with BOAC. People then,she said , dressed up to travel in their smartest clothes and hats. She travelled all over the world and thoroughly enjoyed it and still misses her old job.
I hereby declare that I would like to see more aviation related videos. Thank you.
I enjoyed this report especially because I worked at the Airways Terminal back as a lad in 1969. I was a “baggage boy”! I was intrigued to hear that there was a direct link into Victoria Station from the terminal. That would have been quite a walk for flight passengers. There was, however, a platform actually in the terminal for the trains to Southampton for flying boat passengers. It used to be visible on the left from Southern Region trains a couple of minutes before pulling into the station. I believe it has now been removed. Also, as far as I am aware the only busses to the Number 3 building from central London all departed from the Airways Terminal whereas the BEA terminal in Cromwell Road was the only point of departure for busses to Numbers 1 and 2 buildings. Both the BOAC and BEA terminals were available to passengers on all airlines using the relevant departure buildings.
Ah, interesting! I didn’t know there was a dedicated platform .
Hello cascinagianni, I worked as a 'baggage boy' in 1962/3 then on to Passenger Service until Airways Terminal closed in late 1980.
@@cyrilclark5167 Hi Cyril. I think I remember you. I was a baggage boy in 1967\68. Wasn’t passenger services the next desk down where seating was allocated and bus tickets sold. Did you go off to Hawaii with Ros and one of her girlfriends. I was on the same shift as the injured tennis player, Roger Cawley who went on to marry Evonne Goolagong. Small world!
@@cascinagianni I am not so sure I remember you. There were two girls named Ros working with us. I certainly didn't go on a Hawaii trip - I was well married by then! Did you stay in the airline business?
How strange to read your comment! And to see the other replies too. I was a baggage boy from Augst 68 until Feb 1970 when i went flying as Cabin Crew. Stayed there until retirement, a wonderful life I have to say. So much so that my son's a captain with Emirates, having an even better life I think! My name's Gerry Salmon, and I remember Cyril, I remember Roger Cawley too, and am still good friends with Tony Muckle and Colin Campbell, he worked on the Mezz in the bar. The building has always fascinated me, and I spent a day there a few years ago, had to organise it first though through the NAO.
BOAC was better known as "Better On A Camel". I've flown on their Comet 4s (round windows) and VC10s
My Father was lucky enough to fly on their Flying Boat Service to Singapore in the early 1950s. He said they would stop each night for dinner and sleep over night in a hotel before continuing. 3 days I believe it took.
As an aside, I flew on a Comet 4 to Singapore and we stopped in Calcutta at about 5 in the morning (local time). Everyone disembarked, we were shown to bedrooms and our luggage was brought to us. We were able to bathe, change and go for a rather nice breakfast (full silver service) before re-boarding at about 9 am and continuing our journey to Singapore.
Wasn't there also a BEA terminal on Marylebone Road?
Ha, I’ve never heard that nickname for BOAC. I always think air travel sounds like it was much more exciting back then.
@@JagoHazzard I forgot to mention that when I flew on the Comet 4 to Singapore it took 36 hours door to door!
@@JagoHazzard Or, during the Profumo scandal of the early 60s, Bend Over Again Christine. My first job was at the WLAT in 1978. We even had a social club with a bar for lunchtime drinking !
In the 1970s BEA was also known as Back Every Afternoon or sometimes the Flat Earth Society 😉
My grandfather was a captain on the Empire flying boats, to Africa I believe, as my dad spent some time growing up in Kenya.
Fascinating! I'm sure the exterior has been in an episode of Poirot. Love these Art Deco buildings, they really create a word of romance and adventure.
Traveling to some parts of London is still an adventure.
hehehe...
I was up there last week,
used the road that runs parallel to the main road in front of the Croydon airport.
its not the same.
Very interesting and as always full of dry wit (which I love!)
I also love flying boats and would love to know more about them
The Croydon airport terminal is still open and has a small museum but only on specific days I believe
I live quite near it and so many roads are named after British planes etc around it
Might be worth a visit and an article on here😊
Thank you! What a beautiful building! So many thoughts...
* First of all, you make air travel history just as fascinating as rail travel, so feel free to keep going... :)
* Secondly, that sculpture seems to be a very elaborate version of the "Speedbird" that became Imperial Airways' logo, and then BOAC's...and is also used as part of the callsign of British Airways planes (like "Clipper" for Pan Am or "Empress" for Canadian Pacific, an active railway but long-lost airline).
* And third :), bringing it full circle, you may wish to look into (or already know about) "Railway Air Services," which seems to have been the UK's first major domestic airline...it was an outgrowth of the Big 4, serving only major cities and far-flung places such as the Shetlands and the Isles of Scilly...but was a forerunner to BEA, and thus to British Airways.
I don’t know much about RAS, but it’s something I’d like to learn more about.
@@JagoHazzard One good primary source is the Airline Timetable Images website, which has a number of old RAS timetables (and which is how I learned about it): www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/ras.htm
Excellent, many thanks!
Thanks to *you* for your fascinating videos!
Now that you mention Railway Air Services, that explains the link between the Meir Aerodrome (1930s - c70) in Stoke-on-Trent and British Railways. It had scheduled flights to and from British and Irish cities until the early 50s. If a flight was to land at Meir, it would radio en route to the station master at Meir, who had to go there to weigh the passengers and their luggage.
From the mid-1950s to the 1970s, my late father worked at what was by then the BOAC, later British Airways offices in the old Imperial Airways building. I remember he took me into the offices around 1963-1964. Including showing me a roomful of computer equipment that ran the then state of the art BOADICEA reservations computer system. It was an impressive building insids as well as outsids.
I also have fond memories from the same era of flights on Boeing 707 and VC 10 aircraft resplendent in their blue and white BOAC livery with the gold Speedbird logo on the tail. So far as I know, the callsign for today's British Airways planes is still "Speedbird" (for international flights) followed by the flight number. Unfortunately, that's about all that remains from the days when air travel was still glamerous.
Speedbird BA001 was Concorde's call sign.
As a fan of Imperial Airways I found this very interesting and informative, thank you
Greetings from Dhaka, Bangladesh! Did British Airways maintain a ticketing office in this building during the late 1970s? When I was 5 years old, in November 1977, I remember my Dad taking me to an office in a building much like this to purchase plane tickets for a trip from London to Cairo. The flight was by a VC10 aircraft (as my Dad told me later).
They may well have done. I’ll see what I can find out.
Alexander Frater tried to fly the route at 2.20 in the 1980s, using scheduled flights from airports as near as possible to the original Imperial stops. He then wrote a book about it (Beyond the Blue Horizon).
Thanks for taking me back in time. Although you didn't know, you've answered one of my questions about the origins of British Airways. Thank you
I remember seeing the Routemaster buses with trailers In British Airways livery on the motorway going to Heathrow 😊
and do you remember also the small luggage trailer that went with them.
Whenever I hear the phrase "Wings Over the World", I'm reminded of the future peacekeeping force of the same name depicted in the 1936 movie "Things to Come". The movie is based on the H.G. Wells novel "The Shape of Things to Come", and Wells himself wrote the script.
It was Spring 1972 and we had flown over from Dublin for school interviews as we were on the verge of emigrating to Britain. On arrival we were met by our father at H'row, but our return was via the Cromwell Road terminal. I had hardly thought about much until seeing those images, especially the spiral driveway. It's a slightly dark memory as our move to London would never be the happiest and we had to contend with a long period of adjustment (3/4 years). That was very first experience of air travel when I was 9, but we were actually well versed airport kids because our father who was an actor was forever flipping between Dublin and London for telly parts in the likes of the The Avengers & The Saint. When we'd meet him on his return we'd always want to know what aircraft he'd flown which would have been a Viscount, a Vanguard or a Trident. He was a little bit famous so it wasn't surprising if he was asked up to the cockpit, even being allowed to occupy the jump seat for a couple of landings.
speedbird is still the callsign for british airways today
I too am a fan of flying boats.
And airships. And ocean liners.
The idea that travel is defined as cramming as many people
into the smallest possible space and getting them to a destination as quickly as possible is
to me, questionable, but certainly profitable.
That such an approach has democratized travel is the major benefit.
The old Cunard motto, "getting there is half the fun" applies.
Flying Boats are beautiful, in a way modern commercial airliners simply aren't.
For once UA-cam recommended a good channel. Great historical observations and research into specific case studies. Great.
I remember the double decker buses and luggage trailers that tore down the A4 from the West London Air Terminal on Cromwell Road in the 70s. The main reason for its closure is cited as the increasing road traffic and jams which delayed the buses and caused flight delays. They built a Sainsburys supermarket on the site in 1983, and apartments above.
and the buses [the later ones were LT Routemasters] were owned by BEA but operated by London Transport.
There is a BOAC and BEA bus at Brooklands Museum,Weybridge.
Thank-you that was very interesting. The buildings are beautiful and I love hearing how some people travelled years ago.
I wish the pace of modern life was still accommodating to days of travel and stop-overs in Cairo and Calcutta, etc, for evening meals and breakfast. Sadly, the need to travel for meetings, across the world, are less likely, with the arrival of Web conferencing. Oh well..
They should, at least, make it available for holiday concepts, like train journeys and cruises. Or do they?
Flying boats do look like fun. Too bad.
Trivia question :
In the late 70s, walking home from East Croydon Station toward the high street I would pass a brick wall with a marker saying Whitgift and a date, 1500s I think. There was the Whitgift (shopping) centre nearby. Who was Whitgift?
Archbishop.of Canterbury.
As a teenager, I used the Empire Terminal in Victoria numerous times between 1972 and 1975, when my father had jobs first in Zambia and then in Bangladesh. He had retired from flying after 25 years with BOAC, and secured administrative positions first with the Department of Civil Aviation in Zambia (Lusaka), and then with the United Nations in Bangladesh (Dacca).
This video brings back happy memories of passing many a long hour in the mezzanine lounge with friends from school, all of us waiting for different flights, going to slightly different destinations in Africa and Asia.
Damn it would be amazing to have flying boats still operating out of southampton. I'll just have to be satisfied with the spitfire being built there.
Great works as always, Jago
The "Wings over the World" and "Speed" ideas in the sculpture were presumably combined in the term "Speedbird" used to identify BOAC and later BA planes in air traffic control. No doubt a plane buff will have more details on this.
Yes the current motiv on BA aircraft is the same one as BOAC and is called the speedbird. BA's callsign still remains as Speedbird
Always wanted to fly in a flying boat. That and a B-17.
Very enjoyable it was too, and yes, there is scope to do air related videos (such as the check-in desks that British Caledonian used to have at Victoria, and also the short lived check-in desks multiple airlines had at Paddington. I always wondered how they got the luggage from there to the airport....)
Keep up the good work
The Paddo luggage drop is much missed.
Great video, Jago. I reckon almost everyone appreciates all the planning that goes into making these videos. This is a great subject. I saw the building a lot, decades ago, going into Victoria from Brighton. This video demonstrates that large buildings in cities can be beautiful, and don’t have to be dull.
The tube of yous has decided that I ought to watch several of your shows a second time. I see I gave the obligatory thumbs up but strangely left no comment. How unlike me!
I'd pay to for instance: Take a flying boat from somewhere in LA [Longbeach?] out around the Channel Islands of California that include Santa Catalina. Land there for lunch and back to the mainland.
It would be perfect for interisland hops in Hawai'i or possibly from the Miami area to the Bahamas or other Caribbean locals. And I believe it would be astonishing anywhere in the Juan de Fuca/ Seattle/Vancouver region. When it's clear out, lol.
There must be a dozen paces where tourist niche flights could be made viable somehow. Cebu, Philippines, The English Channel Islands, the coast of South Africa...
Once this darn covid thing is dealt with.
This was amazing, thank you Jago!
Follow up would be airport check-in desks at London Rail terminals ?
Liv St - Maersk Air, Victoria - AA, BCal, Laker, Padd - BA
Yes please to more of this subject ,
Wonderful videos! Put me down as one who you enjoy a Jango Hazzard flavored look at London air travel! Thank you !
I would love to know more. There is a great 2 part video on the airports of London but it never mentioned these terminals. I never thought how people got to the airports back then
If you can, try and get hold of a copy of Bradshaw's air guides from the 1930's. These detail all the national and international air routes from the UK. It includes the timetables, fares and the overnight stops on the long journeys. When I was in the London Transport Museum a couple of years ago there were selling facsimile copies of this fascinating guide.
Thanks! I’ll see if I can find one.
@@JagoHazzard From what I can remember from that guide, the price of a single ticket to Australia (including 5 overnight stops) was £200. That at a time when the average wage in the UK was about £4 a week.
I just came across the vague knowledge of the existence of pullman trains and coaches. I saw it was
Just recently I was checking the options available on the Royal Windsor Steam Express, and I discovered they were promoting a "Pullman style" ticket. Until that moment I have knot known what Pullman trains and coaches were (I had to do a little wikipedia search). And just on this video I saw you mentioned Pullman trains as well. Given my complete ignorance about those, I think you should do a video on those trains :)
Also I used to work just across the street on the building just on top of Victoria station, and every time I wandered that area I thought those two art-deco buildings (this one you talk about and Victoria Coach Station) must have seen better days, specially after the dull refurbishments, but I never realised of what an interesting story there was behind it!
Great video , what about extending this subject and talk more about other disused air ports aroid london ? Heston , Hounslow for example ? Not much left of them but still could be interesting.
I do keep thinking I’d like to look at the one at Croydon as well.
@@JagoHazzard now you talking :)
Another excellent and informative video, yes please for more videos on air travel connections with London. On that subject didn't Laker have a check-in at Victoria? I seem to remember from a rather hazy adolescence a Laker presence at the station or was it just a ticket desk. Also any information on the heady days of flying from Croydon Airport would be very welcome, I believe the terminal building is still there.
I remember Laker Airways passengers sleeping on the street adjoining the station in order to get on his Skytrain service-.
Yes, l enjoyed it very much. 😊
Interesting video Jago !
During ww2 the flying boats operated from Poole harbour ( carrying VIP s )
The slip ways were still there in 2010
near the end of the freight only Hamworthy branch line .
Thank you. My grandfather used to fly Empire flying boats and was based down there at some point.
You could still check in at Victoria station into the 1990s, if memory serves it was only for American Airlines, and your luggage would be conveyed to Gatwick Airport via the Gatwick Express. The check in was in the buildings next to platform 14 and the ramp for the luggage can still be seen at the end of platform 1 at the airport
In Holland you could check in for flights at Den Haag Centraal station. If you had hand baggage only you could get the train to Schiphol airport and go straight through passport control and on the plane. Don't know if they still have that check in.
just one thing, speak across your microphone, not directly into it, and get a microphone sock(a foam cup that fits across the head of the microphone). This will prevent the explosive(popping) sounds of words beginning in 'P' or 'B'.
I spent my whole working life in civil aviation and worked for BOAC. Liked your commentary on the Imperial Airways terminal at Victoria. You didn't mention that air passengers would check in at the terminal and there was direct access to the platform at Victoria through which they and their (I presume portered luggage) would proceed to board the train to flying boat base on the Solent. I am not sure if it is still there but at one time the bricked up access could be seen at platform level. BEA's West London Air Terminal is now the site of a supermarket. Passengers could check in there for their flight from Heathrow and would be transported from there to Heathrow by bespoke coaches operated by London Transport in BEA livery. These were later replaced by adapted Routemasters towing the baggage trailer. These RMs were the RMC or RMA series of vehicles and were very similar to the Greenline coach versions. I have enjoyed all your You Tube videos - please carry on doing them.
I'm a massive fan of Imperial Airways HP42 👍
Intressing video as always. BUT it needs to said that before the Germans, it was the 🇧🇪BELGIANS who opend & operated the first "commercial" airfield (airport) called 'Kiewit' near Hasselt. After that 2 more had opend by 1909 on Belgian soil✌🏻.
The 🇩🇪Germans followed in 1913 with theirs, near the northern port city of Bremen, which is still in use till this day. And the 3rd place in "Earliest" commercial Airport goes to 🇬🇧'Hounslow Heath Aerodrome' opening in A
ugust 1920. Our National 🇳🇱Dutch Airport 'Schiphol' was opend to commercial flights in December of that very same year (1920). After it had been an operational military airport ever since september 1916!!😉✌🏻
I worked for BA from July 1975 for 43 years and although never based at either premiss, knew them well. BA ran bus services to Victoria Terminal from Heathrow T3 using BA owned Leyland Atlantean buses, and London Transport, under license, ran bus services from WLAT to Heathrow T1 using Routemasters with baggage trailers until the early 1980’s and ceased operations when for both economic and political reasons, mainly the Piccadilly tube line opening…. WLAT was the location for BA reservations, with some also at Victoria. They both closed and were consolidated at Heathrow, also by the early 1980s.
This answers a mystery for me also! 01:00 the building is now the HQ for the National Audit Office.
I worked for many years across the road in the TfL offices at 172-200 Buckingham Palace Road, built above Victoria Coach Station.
Although it has belonged to TfL for many years there is a sign at the entrance to the basement car park directing visitors to contact Head of Security, British Airways. None of us could work out why. Presumably there was staff parking underneath the coach station for the adjacent Air Terminal!
Nowadays the basement is mostly filled with Met Police vehicles from Belgravia Police Station at 201 Buckingham Palace Road.
You may not consider yourself too well-versed in the history of air travel but, like so many avenues, it's interlaced with railway history. Any airport worth it's salt has a rail connection of some sort - except Glasgow, of course.🤔
I might as well duck now, as folks throw me a huge list of airports 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑡 any rail connection in their history.😁
At the London Science Museum, (as I recall,) there is a photo of that 4-engined biplane Imperial airliner being refueled in Egypt. There is a guy there with toothbrush moustache who isn't Charlie Chaplin, so it must be...Adolf Hitler!
Just to add to the fun who remembers the KLM terminal at 202 Sloane Street with its own fleet of [hired] coaches running to London Airport North and then Central? Fare was the same as Cromwell Road -5 shillings/25p - and we often found BEA (Britain's Excuse for an Airline) passengers who preferred our service as being nearer to their hotels. But who also remembers when the Ariel and Skyway hotels first opened at LAP. My wife and I in uniform enjoyed freebies there.
The winged icon above the NAO logo is quite interesting, as that is clearly reminiscent of the Imperial Airways wing without the monogram in the centre. I suspect the monogram element was removed with the formation of BOAC, as (due to the whole "war" thing) used the same pilots wings as Imperial, with the monogram removed.
Honestly, BOAC's wartime history is fascinating and rarely discussed.
The other nickname for BOAC described the pilots “ Boys Overseas After Crumpet”
I was reading the history of air travel and airports and came across this in the last few months. It has an interesting robbery story as well.
Considering it is the national audit office the damm clock on it is never correct, do not rely on it for catching a coach at VCS. For a short time after 1980 National Express used the building for its departing services ??to Wales and the West Country?? (Was VCS being re-furbished or more coaches (and larger ones) on the services, and Bullied Way coach station was not in use (I dont think),
the old man worked at Croydon Airport, the left hand building if looking from over the road in the 'park'...
then moved to Park Street in Croydon proper...
i did have their business plack (spelling?) from the front of both some place.
I have a very vague memory of going to somewhere on Regent Street to check in for a flight, probably to Spain, some time in the very early 1960's. I would have been around 5 years old at the time so it is quite possible that my memory is faulty. If it wasn't actually an airport check-in I suppose it could have been some travel agent that provided a coach from there to the airport. Does this ring any bells with anyone who knows more about 1960's air travel in the London area?
I always wondered what this builing is/was! I've been wondering that for 45 years - since we moved to Darkest Kent, and we passed it every time we went up town. In those halcyon days before divorce, poverty, bedsits and coach travel (sigh), I assumed it was Victoria coach station. How wrong I was.
I would love to see more videos on air travel, especially long distance travel to British colonies and more in-depth looks at the planes used in those times. Great video, thanks!
Why didn't they convert the Imperial Airways Empire Terminal into the entrance to the Gatwick Express?
The ability to do check-in, at the terminal, could have allowed them to have people get straight off the trains and onto the aircraft.
Really fascinating - seems to have aroused a lot of interest. Is there room for a video about people's experiences flying in the 1930s? It would be interesting to see how much time to took from one's arrival at the airport to taking off in the plane... Incidentally I believe that at one point the airport names were spelled out in large white stones in the airfields (and they were fields then) - for the pilots to be able to identify them, and that sometimes they followed the railway lines as a way to find out where they were.
There was also a British Caledonian Air terminal for Gatwick inside Victoria station..I used it once in 1980..
I remember the British Airways signs on the terminal. I also remember the special airport buses outside the terminal on Buckingham Palace Road when they used to run from there..
2:35 I love comparing old prices. £4, 15 shillings to Paris. According to the Bank of England inflation calculator it’s the equivalent of £313 today.
I ❤️ the art-deco building! The statue reminds me of “Worker and Kolkhoznitsa”.
The map at 3:28 shows a proposed transatlantic link to Montreal (via Gander, NL, and NY via Bermuda). I wonder when those started and how much it cost.
Paris’ air terminal was at Invalides station. I don’t know if such a system of checking in in the city ever existed in North America.
You can see flying boats in “King Ottakar’s Scepter” of the Adventures of Tintin.
Also requiring a refueling call at Shannon in the Irish Free State. Nonstop flights from LHR to Idlewild were not the rule till the jet era.
Esmee Phillips: Indeed!
I looked it up.
The 1st transatlantic flight to land in Montreal-YUL was a KLM only in 1949.
And I’m sure it had to stop at Shannon and Gander on the way.
We did get a visit from the R100 dirigeable in 1930 but the program was abandoned.
But transatlantic trips were still by boat well into the 1950’s I think?
Was there a kind of special platform in London for trains going to Southampton?
Or you just took any train?
An airways with "Imperial" in it's name certainly wouldn't fly in today's world.
Love to see a clips about the adapted Routemaster buses with their luggage trailer. I remember seeing them coming out of the Cromwell Road terminal when I visited my grandmother in Kensington in th 1960's
Almost across the road from this building is London Undergrounds health facility for medical tests for staff. Spent more time than I would like there.
Fabulous building!
Vast without being Brutalist.
I find it funny that a man named Alber LAKEman tasked to design/built a building in PORTland and yet the building is an AIR Terminal
This building reminds me of the RAF memorial in Runnymede, but it might just be the colour.
Oh yes Air Travel.....
I remember the days when it was a thing.
Im sure it will come back into fashion one day
An interesting aside about Croydon Airport is that it was the the site of British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain's, "Peace in our Time" speech (Sept. 30, 1938). Croydon Airport Britains first International Airport, it was the first Airport with a Control Tower in fact it boasted two control towers, The first Airport to have an integrated Terminal building and on completion of the Terminal building in 1928 it was the largest airport in the world. The Terminal buildings are still there and are now an Airport visitor centre and museum. They bear testimony to a time when Britain lead the world in Air Transport and aircraft design and production.
Croydon airport is now mostly offices. On some weekends a charity runs tours around the halls, control tower and one more room they own.
The "Peace in our Time" speech was never at Croydon Airport. It was at Northolt Aerodrome.
Hi Tim Bowerman, Looks like I made an error. Then again it was not at Northolt Aerodrome but Heston Aerodrome.
George Pearson It ran near a road (Purley Way) but no runway went across it like Gibraltar, the cyclists that you saw were near a chain link fence not a gate across a road.
I have always enjoyed the Art Deco style, and it really enhances this attractive building. I hope the interior was as attractive. Nice video.
I worked inside this building for two years, and as you can tell from the outside the ground floor had no windows, it was a bit like working in a basement! But it meant it had a lot of space that was used for desks and check-in area for baggage. The open area also had a mezzanine level which offered a bar and sitting area, it was like being in the middle of a constantly busy train. Those first two levels were all that passengers saw, there were about another four floors of offices above that. Despite the basement feeling I loved working there.
Thank you, a new part of my Empire flying boat knowledge 👍🏻
Thanks for that! I've always wondered for whom that quite splendid structure was built. Now I know. I know very little about Imperial Airways - but I did make the old Airfix kit of their Handley-Page 'Heracles' airliner, an ungainly, beautiful object. BOAC did, during the war, operate flights for V.I.P.'s and small, high value cargoes using civil registered De Havilland Mosquito aircraft, flown by 'civilian' crews, so as to be able to enter neutral airspace. The passenger was housed in the bomb bay of the plane, that had been converted for such a purpose. They were flown from Scotland to neutral Sweden. A notable passenger on one flight, from Sweden to Scotland, from where he would fly to the USA, was nuclear physicist, Niels Bohr.
I wish I had the choice of an airship or a flying boat when I have to travel. I missed so much by being born too late, all the-tastiest-technology seems to be gone.
At about 1:10 I can just hear the ghost of the most upper-crust British interpretation of Rule Britannia lol
The two dislikes are people that were bumped.
A more prosaic air travel counter, Freddie Laker, was based in Victoria station
So is the National Audit office like y’alls IRS?
I like to picture it as a Klingon bird of prey when viewed from the front.
Interesting fact, the terminal is built on land that was originally one of the many wharves along the long lost Grosvenor Canal. The terminal basin of that canal was, by all accounts, a massive affair, and it's little wonder that it was repurposed in the railway age, becoming the location of good ol' Victoria Station. There's actually still a short stub of the canal remaining adjacent to Grosvenor Road where it used to lock into the Thames. The only reason this has survived is that it was handy for loading refuse onto barges for transport via the Thames.
I would love to know more about our air travel, including airships and hangars at Cardington, we don’t hear enough about that.
Pan Am had a terminal nearby at the top of Semley Place, its a snooker club now.
From experience this aspect of the building's history makes the annual Open House opening of the NAO well worth it. They have decorated the main lobby area in an art deco influenced style and the luggage chute which luggage was sent down from check in to the platform is still there if I recall correctly. The staff cafe which fronts Victoria Street to the right of the main entrance used to be the bus terminal part apparently.
The building is fab and it reminds me of The Hoover Building.
A Jago video I had not seen before. What a find. More airports/air travel please
June 1939 ... not the best time to open a International air terminal
I used to live round the corner from this building, and never realised the history behind it. Thanks for an illuminating bit of video!
Brilliant vid but needs some jaunty 1960s info-merrcial soundtrack surely?
02:15 - if Indiana Jones was British, his films would have that map.
PS. Speed might look like speed, but howay, that's nowt like Paul and Linda!
18, 000! Way to go young man!
Thank you!
I’m so glad I found your channel. Brilliant bite-sized morsels of history!
Thanks!
One for the future - how Heathrow grew from the "muddy field with scrappy tents" as described by my mother (during her late 1940's ATS service escorting female prisoners to the UK for justice) to the massive airport it is today.
You should tell her story.
I had a friend, now long passed, who was a Catalina pilot. He would have apoplexy if anybody called such craft as a flying boat. He insisted they were called amphibious aircraft.
Some of them were. Imperial airways had true Empire class flying boats that could only land and take off from water. Later some flying boats were designed w wheels too, thus amphibious like the Catalina's.
There is an amazing doco on youtube about a trip down Africa trying to recreate the Empire flying boat route using a Catalina. But it just wasn't designed for the high altitude take off from the lake in (Kenya?).
Love this channel very interesting keep it up man