Within thirty years of
Bleriot’s first flight across the English Channel, air travel had advanced
to the stage that Imperial Airways had established a network of regular
services to Australia, South Africa, India and China, and London’s airport
at Croydon had become so congested that a new airport, the most advanced in the
world, connected by subway to its own rail station, was opened at Gatwick in
June 1936. It was in this context that Player’s produced a series of fifty
International Air Liners, our set of the month for July. Here we see the latest
aircraft such as the Douglas DC3 ‘Dakota’, one of which, used by
American Airlines on the New York to Los Angeles overnight service, had seats
which converted into beds, and separate dressing rooms (with running water) for
men and women – the kind of comfort major trans-Atlantic operators are
only just experimenting with for first class today! Lunch is shown being
prepared for the thirty –nine pampered passengers aboard an Imperial
Airways flight, and German Luft Hansa aircraft with swastikas on their tails
turn out to be civilian versions of the Junkers which were soon to be seen in
the skies over Britain carrying a rather more sinister load.
This set of Players 50 International Air-Liners
1936 in Very Good Condition is catalogued at £25.00. |
