"Viscounts Flight Heralds New Era"

These were the headlines which followed the opening of our new services to Bulawayo on the 5th January, 1959, when for the first time C.A.A. operated Viscounts between Salisbury and Bulawayo, and Bulawayo and Johannesburg.

A tremendous amount of goodwill towards C.A.A. (Central African Airways) was evidenced by the fact that so many prominent people gave their time to take the flight with us to Bulawayo and back. Our guests included such busy people as the Federal Minister of Transport, Mr. W.A. Eastwood, the Mayors and Mayoresses of Salisbury and Bulawayo, the Presidents of Chambers of Commerce and

Industry, the Postmaster General, travel agents and members of the Press.

The City of Bulawayo itself "went to town" in welcoming the new C.A.A. venture by giving a Civic Luncheon to mark its appreciation, at which 137 guests attended. In his speech at the luncheon, the Mayor of Bulawayo paid a warm tribute to C.A.A. Our Chairman, in his reply, was in his best form and was able to give the pleasing news that we are operating within our subsidy figure.

Above: Passenger Attendants SHEILA BUCHANAN and ANN WILLCOCK presented corsages to the lady passengers on arrival at Bulawayo of the first Viscount service.  In this picture Sheila hands Mrs. Pocket her corsage and Ann pins another on Mrs. McNeille's frock

While we cannot say at this stage that the Viscount services into Bulawayo will run at 100% load factors, we are quite sure that there will be many converts back to air travel over the coming months.

Readers will recall that the last time a Viscount visited Bulawayo, we had the honour of carrying Her Gracious Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

End

Extracted and recompiled by Eddy Norris, from the C.A.A. magazine "The SCAANER" dated January 1959, which was made available by Dave Vermaak Thank you Dave.

In the original copy the title of this article had VICOUNTS, ORAFs made thee change to VISCOUNT.

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Ref. Rhodesian Aviation

Federation's New Airliners

Extracted from the book 'Know your Rhodesia and Know Nyasaland - 300 selections from the Rhodesia Herald', published in 1956.

With the decision two years ago by Central African Airways to purchase four-engined Vickers Viscount turbo-prop airliners, these aircraft are now in regular operation over the Federation, swiftly traversing Africa. The Viscount has become a familiar sight arriving at and departing from the new Salisbury airport.

The photograph shows one of these aircraft just taking off.

In their decision to buy Viscounts the C.A.A. continued their policy of buying British. Because of the land-locked nature of the Central African territories it is inevitable that as the Federation grows in economic strength and population the national airline will have to provide more and more facilities to link its territorieswith the outside world and to increase the frequency of services within its borders.

It was to meet this demand that the C.A.A. Board requested authority to purchase four-engined, pressurised aircraft to replace the Viking fleet.

The first Viscount delivered to C.A.A. was named "Malvern" after Viscount Malvern, first Prime Minister of the Federation.

The Viscount was the world's first propeller-turbine airliner and production is included in the British Government's super priority programme.

It comes from the same stable as the Vickers Vimy, in which Alcock and Whitten Brown made the first direct Atlantic crossing in 1919 and Van Ryneveld and Brand the first flight from England to the Cape.

Other Weybridge-built aircraft include the famous Wellington bomber, the Viking which has proved so popular in all parts of the world, and the Valetta, used by the RA.F. (Royal Air Force) in transport and other roles.

End

Material made available by Nick Baalbergen, recompiled by Eddy Norris for use on "Our Rhodesian Heritage" blog only. Thanks Nic

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