WE take transatlantic travel for granted these days. My brother-in-law recently flew in from the West Coast of America, via Iceland, which I thought was an unusual route.
Not so, says Mrs Moira Marchant, of Taylor Hill. She flew to Canada via Iceland in 1951.
“Flying in the early days, before the advent of jet planes, was not easy,” she says.
She was taking her daughter to visit her parents and they flew from Prestwick to an American air force base in Iceland.
“We had a meal there and saw the Midnight Sun over the barren landscape.”
Before the war she lived in Newfoundland which was the destination of British and American flying boats that made the experimental crossing from Shannon in Ireland in 1937. “My mother and I would get up early and drive down to the coast about 30 miles away to see these planes arrive.”
The first passenger flights were made in 1939 by Boeing’s Yankee Clipper aircraft. It took 29 hours.
Next time you fly to Florida, thank your lucky stars for progress.
