Comments on: Friday, 23 September 1938

By: Brett Holman

Brett Holman — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:41:40 +0000

Well, I’m glad we sorted that out! :)

By: JDK

JDK — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:05:17 +0000

Great source find there, Ian, a good ‘vox pop-cough-uli’. Maybe we can collect our fur-trimmed anoraks on our way out…

By: Ian Evans

Ian Evans — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 08:18:25 +0000

I suggest “HP 42″ may have been known outside the aviation press and professionals. Source “An Album of International Air Liners”, issued by John Player & Sons (Brett, where do I apply for my product placement bribe – oops, fee?). Price One Penny. As you might guess, this is a collection of cigarette cards, and card number 4 says “Imperial Airways Liner “Horatius,” “Heracles” class (Great Britain). This is one of the two Handley Page 42 biplanes used on the Continental services of Imperial Airways……… ” No date on the album, but there is a card of a DC 3 in United Airlines markings, so 1937 at the earliest.
Hope this doesn’t disappoint anyone.

By: JDK

JDK — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:58:15 +0000

The airliners were probably known as HP42’s by the aviation press and professionals at least initially; as the first flew before acquiring a name. (Might have been ‘Handley Page’s Airliner’, though. However the official paperwork would refer to a type number.) Type designations vs individual names vs fleet names are a tricky area to get right, and airlines and aircraft manufacturers get very upset when the other mandates an ‘official’ term for ‘their’ aircraft. Of course the general press do love to use the most entertaining name that comes to hand too, which hardly helps.

Sometimes that press invented name gets stuck, officially, to the type later – such as ‘The Flying Fortress’ invented by a pressman for the B-17, and adopted by Boeing and the USAAF, and discussed here by Brett, and I think the same for the ‘Jumbo Jet’ – something I’d imaging Boeing are having kittens about at the moment, as their rival manufacturer’s latest is getting called a ‘Super Jumbo’ in the press.

And… Just another person chiming in to say what a fascinating effort this ‘post-blog’ is, and I appreciate how much work it must be for Brett, but worthwhile and thought provoking – and not just airliner names either…

By: Erik Lund

Erik Lund — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 19:12:43 +0000

Every design project would have had an H.P. number, and I read on Wikipedia (and if you can’t trust Wiki, who can you trust?) that HP42 and HP45 were assigned to the “H” airliners. I don’t know whether recognising that it is anachronistic to assign type numbers to ‘planes that were known at the time by their names, like ships is going to lead the cultural historian anywhere. If only I had access to the _Handley Page_ volume in the Putnam series out here in Vancouver…
What I do know is that –well, any chance to wrong foot Corelli Barnett is a chance to be taken.

By: Brett Holman

Brett Holman — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 08:37:58 +0000

Chris:

Yes, you’ve put your finger on something there — kind of what I was trying to get at when I listed the Sudeten crisis in my post on unwritten books. There was so much more going on than the political and military moves, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a serious treatment of the crisis at ’street-level’ (good term!)

Erik:

I not that the Mail did use the word dash :) You may be right about the use of H.P. 42, I can’t find a mention of it in my notes (except where I’m paraphrasing) and a quick check suggests that names were used in the press, at least. At some point I guess it was decided that everything had to have a number …

By: Erik Lund

Erik Lund — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:03:45 +0000

Minor correction here: _Heracles_ doesn’t dash anywhere. It tops out at “amble.”
Hee. I made a funny about an “H” class. I could write for _Flight_. Now all I need is a tame stressman named Horace.
Seriously (so that’s my cue that the above was a joke, I guess), does anyone know if they were called “H 42s” prewar, or is this just an invention of Corelli Barnett? I can only recall the old birds being called by their individual names. And for those determined to find humiliation in the whole affair, what better example than a 10-year old four-engined biplane being sent to evacuate civilians. If only the new A. W.s were ready…

By: Chris Williams

Chris Williams — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:04:38 +0000

The thing that is really interesting about these posts for me is how it’s shown me that this had a ’street-level’ history as well as a diplomatic one. Riots, ‘atrocities’, attacks on police stations, rumour and hysteria: all these things haven’t found a place in the accounts of the period which concentrate on the IR aspects of it all. Nice.