Wednesday, May 27, 2015

AIR FRANCE 1959 CARAVELLE OPERATIONS

AIR FRANCE  FIRST MONTHS OF THE CARAVELLE OPERATIONS



On this May 27, 1955 we celebrate the maiden flight of SE-210 Caravelle. The Caravelle an iconic French plane . France could not be left behind in the new world of Jet aircraft. The USA had almost the monopoly of both piston engined planes : the Douglas DC3/4/6/7 series, the Lockheed constellation ... and the new to be introduced revolutionary designs the  Boeing  707 and Douglas DC8. The UK has the best selling turboprop by the name of the Vickers Viscount and had an experience however tragic with the DH 106 Comet, the Russians,on the other hand,were working very hard on the Tupolev 104 and France was left behind, it could not align any successful commercial airliner , The Languedoc was ill fitted to fulfill the needs of Air France and the Armagnac did not live to its promises.
On 12 October 1951, the Comité du matériel civil  published a specification for a medium-range aircraft, . This called for an aircraft carrying 55 to 65 passengers and 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) of cargo on routes up to 2,000 km (with a cruising speed of about 600 km/h The type and number of engines were not specified. Various design studies for aircraft in this category had been underway since 1946 by several of the leading French aircraft manufacturing organisations, but none had the financial power to start construction.
Response from the French industry was strong, with every major manufacturer sending in at least one proposal, and a total of 20 different designs were received. .[
After studying the various entries, the Comité du Matériel Civil cut the list to three entrants on 28 March 1952: the four-engined Avon/Marbore S.0.60, the twin-Avon Hurel-Dubois project, and the three-Avon Sud-Est X-210. At this point, Rolls-Royce  started offering a new version of the Avon that could develop 9,000 lbf (40 kN) thrust, making the auxiliary engines on the S.O.60 and the third engine on the X-210 unnecessary.
The Committee requested SNCASE re-submit the X-210 as a twin-Avon design. In doing so, they decided not to bother moving the remaining engines from their rear-mounted position; most designs placed the engines under the wing where they could be mounted on the spar for lower overall weight, but SNCASE felt the savings were not worth the effort. This turned out to be a benefit to the design, as the cabin noise was greatly reduced. The revised X-210 design with twin Avons was re-submitted to the SGACC in July 1952.
On 6 July 1953 the SGACC ordered two prototypes and two static airframes for fatigue testing.  The nose area and cockpit layout were both taken directly from the Comet jet airliner, while the rest of the plane was locally designed. A distinctive design feature was the cabin windows in the shape of a curved triangle which were smaller than conventional windows but gave the same field of view downwards.
The first prototype of the Caravelle (F-WHHH), christened by Madame de Gaulle, was rolled out on 21 April 1955 and flew on 27 May, the Caravelle established the aft-mounted engine, clean-wing design that has since been used on a wide variety of aircraft (source wikipedia).

In this vintage timetable valid  from August 15 to September 30, 1959 Air France announces the first destinations served by its gracious new aircraft

From the collection of Bjorn Larsonn @ www.timetableimages.com

The routes operated are as follow :

  • Paris-Athens-Beirut and v.v 2 x week
  • Paris-Athens-Tel Aviv and v.v 1 x week
  • Paris-London and v.v Daily
  • Paris-Nice and v.v Daily
  • Nice-Rome and v.v Daily
  • Paris-Rome-Athens-Istanbul and v.v 4 x week
  • Paris-Milan-Athens-Istanbul and v.v 4 x week
  • Paris-Rome and v.v 1 x week
The above is better illustrated  with a map



AIR FRANCE caravelle operations August-September 1959


At that time, Air France was operating a fleet of  5 SE210 Caravelles according to the site rzjets.net.  All Air France Caravelles were named after French region

1- F-BHRA "ALSACE" delivered on March 4, 1959 . It was the prototype


Sud SE-210 Caravelle III, Air France AN1809849.jpg
"Sud SE-210 Caravelle III, Air France AN1809849" by Steve Fitzgerald - Gallery page http://www.airliners.net/photo/Air-France/Sud-SE-210-Caravelle/1809849/L Photo http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/9/4/8/1809849.jpg. Licensed under GFDL 1.2 via Wikimedia Commons.

2- F-BHRB "Lorraine" delivered on March 19, 1959 . It was the aircraft that inaugurated the first services between Paris and London.






3- F-BHRC "ANJOU" delivered in May 1959.

Air France Caravelle with parachute.jpg
"Air France Caravelle with parachute" by Lars Söderström - http://www.airliners.net/photo/Air-France/Sud-SE-210-Caravelle/0229579/L/. Licenced under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

4- F-BHRD "GUYENNE" delivered on June 30 1959.


Sud SE-210 Caravelle III, Air France AN1402414.jpg
"Sud SE-210 Caravelle III, Air France AN1402414" by Michel Gilliand - Gallery page http://www.airliners.net/photo/Air-France/Sud-SE-210-Caravelle/1402414/L Photo http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/4/1/4/1402414.jpg. Licenced under GFDL 1.2 via Wikimedia Commons.

5- F-BHRE "ARTOIS" delivered on July 31 1959.

Sud SE-210 Caravelle III, Air France AN0926297.jpg
"Sud SE-210 Caravelle III, Air France AN0926297" by Michel Gilliand - Gallery page http://www.airliners.net/photo/Air-France/Sud-SE-210-Caravelle/0926297/L Photo http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/7/9/2/0926297.jpg. Licenced under GFDL 1.2 via Wikimedia Commons.

PLEASE READ THE TRIBUTE TO S.A.S 1959 CARAVELLE OPERATIONS
SAS 1959 caravelle operations


Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper - copyright © Karl L. Swartz.

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