Thanks, longshot,

I really must read more about the Albatross. Wasn’t there a long-range version?

As regards the neutrality markings on SABENA’s SM.83s, I was beginning to wonder myself about the shade of paint on their fuselages. Orange-painted aircraft can look a fairly darkish shade of grey in some B&W photos but, even in those photographs taken in fairly good light, they tend to look light grey, not off-white. Maybe the neutrality markings were applied in Leopoldville rather than Brussels; maybe there was insufficient orange paint available there.

I found a better quality version of the relevant part of the same photo on-line. It makes the colour look even more like white, longshot. It also shows the tail stripes more clearly as the Belgian national colours, I’d say. I’m still not sure just how those tail stripes came about, though.

The question of neutrality paint schemes was raised earlier in this thread. Here is a photo of one of ABA’s DC-3s (SE-BAG) just beginning to have the basic orange paint applied to its nose:

The same issue of FLIGHT carried a report on BOAC’s ‘first survey flight’ to Lisbon by G-AFDJ “Falcon”.

As I understand it, BAL moved its scheduled flights from Gatwick to Croydon on 7 February 1937 (because Gatwick had a tendency to get waterlogged) and moved them again on 29 May 1938 from Croydon to Heston (because Croydon was getting too busy). However, I believe that the night mail service (to Hannover?) continued to be operated from Croydon and G-AERX, being a freighter, would be ideal for this duty. Can anyone enlighten me on this, please?

Now, here’s photo of G-AERU, taken at Gatwick, I believe. The question is : if, in the previous image, the final letter is obscured in some way, is there enough space to include the final “U” between “G-AER ” and the tailplane?

Note also that the middle of the three ‘motors’ is bare metal in this image and not in the image above.

Oops, I meant to add that SE-AER was sold to the (old) British Airways in January 1937, registered as G-AERU the same month and received its C of A in February 1937. If I am right in identifying this aircraft, then this must be a bit of old footage that Pathe tacked on to the end of its 1939 newsreel about KLM air hostesses.

I’s just like to go back to a topic from earlier in this thread.

In Post # 148, there is a 1939 British Pathe newsreel about KLM air hostesses, mostly shot at Schiphol. In Post # 150 , there is a still from that newsreel showing a KLM DC-3 PH-ASP landing and, on the ground, a Ju 52 that could be SABENA’s OO-AGV. In Post # 170, longshot identified the airport in that still as Croydon.

I’ve now clipped another still from the newsreel (below), again slightly brightened compared with the newsreel footage itself. This still is from a few seconds earlier than the previously-posted still and longshot‘s identification of the airport as Croydon makes perfect sense. In the background, one can see a line of (mostly) Dragon Rapides.

Behind them, though, is another Ju 52, by the looks of it. It was the era of civil registrations being painted large on the rear fuselage but, even so, it is difficult to make it out. It seems to read “AEP” but I haven’t been able to find any Ju 52 that matches that. Sweden’s ABA had a Ju 52 SE-AER. Could it be that aircraft? Did ABA run Ju 52s to Croydon?

Thank you once again, Graham, for such detailed information and explanation. Somewhere, I have the Robertson/Harleyford book (a green hardback edition from the early 1960s) but it’s a long, long time since I read it and I don’t recall the bit about the dimensions of the Union Flag. If I can, I will try to retrieve it from storage and check it out.

Thank you, too, longshot. The Nils Mathisrud book says that G-AGGC made the Stockholm Run 115 times (from 13 June 1943 to 7 November 1944), that ‘GGE did it 117 times (28 May 1943 to 8 May 1945) and ‘GGH 88 times (from 29 May 1943 to 7 May 1945). So, yes, whichever one it is, there were multiple trips across the North Sea.

As an aside, Lodestar G-AGDD made the most runs amongst aircraft other than Mosquitos – at 83 trips. This is some achievement when you consider [A] that a Mosquito could make more than one run in a day, which a Lodestar could not, and [B] G-AGDD made its last trip on 12 February 1944, when 1944 and 1945 were the peak years for passengers carried by the Norwegian detachment of BOAC; the latter carried almost double the number of passengers in 1944 and 1945 than it had carried in the previous two years, 1942 and 1943. Repaired after an accident on 13 February 1944, G-AGDD operated the supplementary Isle of Man route, where those carried on the Stockholm Run were then taken to be ‘cleared’. It was probably the longest-serving aircraft on the Stockholm Run at 2.5 years (19 August 1941 to 12 February 1944) but I would have to check this. It survived WWII and, for sure, was being flown on concert tours in late-1965 and early-1966 by a well-known American performer.