Great find

[Marcel]

When looking through some books in the museum shop of the small museum at Texel airfield, I found a great book.
"Naar Nederlands-Indie door de lucht" (To the East-Indies by airtravel), printed in 1926. It's an account of the first flight from Amsterdam to Batavia (now Jakarta) in 1924. This was done in the very first Fokker F.VII passenger airplane, the H-NACC and took place from 1 october until 24 november 1924. After 3 days they had an engine failure in Bulgaria and they had to wait a whole month there for a replacement from Holland. At 2 november they could resume the trip. The book gives a technical description of the airplane, the preparation for the flight and description of the flight. It's a very nice travel-story of times past. It gives a great insight of the of French and English aviation and culture in the middle-east and Asia. It was written by the captain, mr. Van der Hoop. I had a great time reading this and it costed me only 1 euro

As a result I developed an interest in these early long-distance flights, so maybe you have some suggestions what to look for?

 

[vikingBerserker]

Very cool!

 

[Airframes]

Marcel, I have a book which may interest you, which you are welcome to borrow. It's actually about a journalist in the 1980s, following the 1920s / 1930s air routes from Europe to Australia and the Far East, as closely as possible, on 'modern day' scheduled flights, charter aircraft etc. It describes the original flights by KLM and Empire Airways etc, giving details of the places visited along the way, and accounts from those who blazed the trails. Far as I remember, it's titled 'The Blue Horizon', and is a very interesting read. Let me know if you would like to borrow it.

 

[Marcel]

Hi Terry,

Yes that would be great. I'm looking for a good book for my flight to the US next month

 

[Airframes]

No problem my friend, I'll get it in the mail later this week. It's actually titled 'Beyond the Blue Horizon', by Alexander Frater.

 

[Marcel]

Thanks Terry, that's really great. Looking forward to it. Is it okay if I return it somewhere in October? I would like to take it with me on the flight to the US.

 

[Airframes]

Just return it whenever you are ready Marcel, there's no rush. You might find that you want to read it twice - I did !