An aerial hub
Once upon a time flying from England to Cyprus was a luxurious experience
On April 18, 1953 a fresh page in civil aviation history was written. The first commercial flight of a new breed of airliner left Heathrow airport. Its ultimate destination was Nicosia.
The aircraft that inscribed the name of the Cypriot capital onto that page of history was the Vickers Viscount. The plane attracted international attention because its propellers were driven by jet engines. The turboprop, as the new breed was called, was the forerunner of the commonplace jet in service today.
A week or so before the inaugural commercial flight of the British European Airways (BEA) Viscount, a correspondent of Flight magazine travelled as a passenger on one of the test flights to Nicosia, via Rome and Athens. His report was written in a style that was breathless with excitement. “An early start is inevitable if the passenger is to reach Cyprus at a convenient hour, and in our case reporting time at Kensington Air Station was 6 a.m.,” he told his readers. The Viscount in question was named Robert Falcon Scott, and the correspondent’s “travelling companions included Lord Douglas of Kirtleside and Lady Douglas, a number of Members of Parliament, and several BEA personnel”.
The Flight correspondent was clearly impressed by the comforts offered on board. “While Steward Jones and Stewardesses Taylor and Osborne prepared breakfast, we took stock of the new seating layout.” Contrary to most air travellers’ experience today, the excited reporter declared that in the Viscount “there is ample leg-room for even the lankiest passenger”. And one suspects that the slim young man in the photograph at the bottom of the report, captioned a “close-up of a passenger lunching at 20,000 feet”, is in fact the Flight reporter.
The Viscount was by far the most successful post-war airliner built in Britain – indeed it was the last unqualified British civil aviation success story, with some 450 aircraft manufactured. The emphasis from the start was on comfort. The windows were large, and the cabin was relatively quiet compared with earlier airliners. The BEA publicity leaflet for the Viscount said that “from the moment you enter the passenger cabin of this aeroplane, you know you are indeed flying in a new age. The softly carpeted, spacious, unassertive luxury around you … these first impressions are overshadowed when, without shudder or vibration, the four mighty Rolls-Royce Dart propeller turbines spin quietly into life.”
Or, in the words of the rather more prosaic Flight correspondent: “Efficient use of available space is combined with a tasteful styling to give a definite impression of luxury. Only the faintest vibrations are felt, and the noise-level is very low, but to describe the aircraft as silent would be misleading.”
Meanwhile, Robin Falcon Scott continued its flight eastward, landing at Rome and then heading on to Athens (“The approach to Hellenikon, situated on the coast 8.5 miles from the city centre, was made over the sparkling waters of the Saronic Gulf.”). In those days, the right to operate between Athens and Cyprus was held by Cyprus Airway, a BEA associate, so the last leg of the journey was operated as CY 33, with the Viscount on charter to the Cypriot carrier.
By the time the Viscount left Athens for Nicosia, it was evening. “By 7 p.m.,” the Flight account continued, “we were flying in darkness over fairly dense cloud, permitting only a faint glimpse of Rhodes and the coast of Turkey. Within 40 minutes the gay lights of Nicosia were winking a cheerful greeting.” After landing, Robert Falcon Scott “taxied to the small terminal area and was promptly boarded by an airport official carrying a disinfectant spray. Most of the occupants were sneezing as they disembarked.”
Frustratingly, the Flight correspondent provided no details of his overnight stay in Nicosia, taking up the story again only when he was back at the airport. “The importance of Nicosia as a traffic-centre was underlined by the amount of early-morning activity which enlivened the period of waiting to board the Viscount. The most colourful arrival, from Sharjah, was a Skymaster of Bharat Airways, which disgorged over 60 Indian emigrants to Jerusalem.”
Within a short time, the Viscount was airborne again, piercing “an out-of-season cloud layer that covered most of Cyprus.” For the Flight correspondent, the adrenalin level was clearly sinking as the airliner approached Heathrow on the return flight. But his two-page report is still sufficiently colourful to evoke memories of a sedate age of air travel, one when Nicosia was an aerial crossroads of such importance that its choice as destination for the inaugural flight of a new breed of airliner seemed entirely natural.
