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Beyond The Blue Horizon

Alexander Frater loves flying. In 1986 he published Beyond the Blue Horizon; the story of a journey following the route of Imperial Airways from London to Brisbane stopping in over 20 places. The 22 hour modern journey used to take closer to 14 days in the 1920's and 1930's. It stopped in cities and deserts. The travellers stayed in hotels and forts, they took four different types of aircraft.

The twenty-two hour flight from the UK to Australia may seem like a long journey in the last few rows of a 747 jet. In the 1930’s the trip took almost two weeks by air, flying only by day. The London to Brisbane route was flown by Imperial Airways in the years between the wars and is recalled by travel writer Alexander Frater.

Beyond the Blue Horizon
Part 1 - The Flight into Egypt

Alex and I travelled from London to Alexandria where we stayed at the Cecil Hotel and found an old man still working at the Alexandria Yacht Club who remembers the flying boats which he saw as a child.

In the first of three programmes about the Imperial route, there are memories of flying boats on the Nile, an argument that aviation began two thousand years ago in Egypt, delays, lost tempers and exasperation for the modern airline passenger.

Download the programme Windows Media.

Around 23 Mb.

Programme Broadcast 27 June 1999

Other Links: "The Torrid Zone" Review: | Info about Chasing the Monsoon | Hotel Cecil, Alexandria | More on Imperial Airways

Beyond the Blue Horizon
Part 2 - The Flying Maharaja

From Cairo Alexander Frater and I flew to Mumbai to interview the former Chief Pilot of Air India; the first man to fly a Boeing 747 into Bombay. Then to Jodhpur to talk to the great aunt of the present Maharaja. The first Maharaja opened the first Jodhpur Flying Club. Finally, when we meet the most senior cabin crew of Air India, they told us about the horror of air accidents.

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In the 1930s two people were key to the introduction of aviation into India. Maharaja Umaid Singh began the Jodhpur Flying Club and insisted that all his staff and family learned to fly. Meanwhile, industrialist R J D Tata earned India's first pilots licence and flew the first mail flight from Karachi to Bombay. In the second programme following the original Imperial Airways route from Croydon airport to Brisbane, travel writer Alexander Frater hears the stories of India's aviators past and present.

Download the programme as Windows Media.

At around 23 Mb

Programme Broadcast 4 July 1999

Other Links: The Boss's Dad |Inside Jodhpur | More on Jodhpur | Air India

Information about Umaid Bhawan is from: www.maharajajodhpur.com

Beyond the Blue Horizon
Part 3 - Journey’s End

George Roberts built his first aeroplane soon after the Wright brothers first flew. He has known all the important aviators in Australian history and recalls the development of flying in Australia in this last programme following the 1930’s Imperial Airlines route from Croydon to Brisbane. On the way travel writer Alexander Frater visits Longreach in the Australian Outback where the commercial air services began in Australia.

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MP3

Programme Broadcast 11 July 1999

Presenter Alexander Frater
Producer Davy Sims

Download the programme Windows Media .

Other Links: QANTAS Founders' Outback Museum | Queensland Network Heritage Trails | More on George Roberts |

And even more