London to Sydney by airship in 1926

Regardless of practicality it sounds like a super-cool trip... or at least it did until I thought about the 32 hour (including layovers) in cattle class going Wellington to Munich I did earlier this year. It was brutal. I even did the round trip inside a week back in 2015. Two 30+ hour trips virtually back-to-back was hell. 5 of them would be even worse, regardless of what class you're flying. I think in 1926 most people who can afford it are gonna stick with the boat.
 
I've allowed a full 36 hours at each stop. That should be enough time to resupply
Hmm, from my overly copious research on the GZ it'd leave Friedrichshafen on Saturday in the evening, arrive at Pernambuco (Recife) on Tuesday afternoon and arrive at Rio on Thursday morning. I don't know much about the Seville stopover, I believe it was brief, mainly to pick up mail and the occasional passenger and top off fuel and ballast.
On the return leg the airship left Rio on Thursday afternoon, stopped at Pernambuco, leaving on Friday evening and arrived at Friedrichshafen on Tuesday afternoon.

This suggests a quick turnover in Rio, only a few hours, with a longer layover (~36 hours) at Recife. There's be a four day period at Friedrichshafen between the fortnightly flights. Info for 1934.

Hope this helps.

You're going to need to build up a pretty large support infrasture in every stop: repair equipment, parts, maybe even spare engines, lots of fuel and oil, trained staff...

I'm not too familiar with the period. How easy/hard would it be to do this, specially the trained personel?
The personnel is an interesting question, and one on which I'm not qualified to comment. I suspect that the infrastructure for serving the airships at the various stops would be integrated with existing bases, e.g. the RN. Though the Australian stops would need to be developed. Indeed might the RN have control of the airships (no independent RAF perhaps)?

Depending on your PoD you could have better engines, a Tornado that delivered or functioning hydrogen/kerosene engines. Or even (rather ASB) a British source of helium.
 
As part of my developing Imperial Federation timeline I'm introducing a London to Sydney airship route in the mid to late 20s. The route is London-Cairo-Bombay-Singapore-Darwin-Sydney. Each leg is (I think) 4,000km or less and I'm working on a flight time of 15 days.
I'm working on a 4,000km (2,500ml, 2,200nm) range at 120kph (75mph, 65kt) cruise in 1926. It gives 33-34 (rounded to 36) hours flight time for each leg, plus a 36 hour stop over on each leg.
Okay so using these numbers that gives us a total flying time of 180 hours, another 144 hours of stop over time, for a grand total of 324 hours, thirteen and a half days, from takeoff in London to touchdown in Sydney. The first question to ask has to be what were the voyage lengths like for the passenger ships making the same journey? I haven't been able to find an exact number with a quick search but there are a couple of references to 35-40 days. Using the upper number that means the airship would take only a third of their journey time, but likely at a much higher cost and with less comfort or amenities. You could knock that down though by reducing the stop over duration, either way as you say it's likely going to need subsidies to survive. Doesn't really matter though as it only has to operate for a decade before it would be supplanted by flying boats assuming they're developed at the same point as in our timeline.
 
The usual way I'd expect, by avoiding it. Generally by flying around it.
Flying around bad weather at 80mph is going to be challenging. Doubly so if you only know where the weather is by eyeballing it or getting scattered reports by w/t.
 
Okay so using these numbers that gives us a total flying time of 180 hours, another 144 hours of stop over time, for a grand total of 324 hours, thirteen and a half days, from takeoff in London to touchdown in Sydney. The first question to ask has to be what were the voyage lengths like for the passenger ships making the same journey? I haven't been able to find an exact number with a quick search but there are a couple of references to 35-40 days. Using the upper number that means the airship would take only a third of their journey time, but likely at a much higher cost and with less comfort or amenities. You could knock that down though by reducing the stop over duration, either way as you say it's likely going to need subsidies to survive. Doesn't really matter though as it only has to operate for a decade before it would be supplanted by flying boats assuming they're developed at the same point as in our timeline.

Yes, the service will require subsidy. But it's a prestige project and introduced well before the depression. I figure this would be acceptable for the period. Weither or not the service gets maintained in the depression is another matter.
 
Yes, the service will require subsidy. But it's a prestige project and introduced well before the depression. I figure this would be acceptable for the period. Weither or not the service gets maintained in the depression is another matter.
Imperial Federation will certainly help since it would require more people moving between member countries, in the 1930s long-range air traffic, at least for the UK, was in large part civil servants with senior business executives and the very rich making up the remainder. IIRC that's why the Bristol Brabazon was designed the way it was, the specification was issued and design begun during WWII so they were still thinking in those terms rather than the post-war move to wider, although still very pricey, air travel.
 

Driftless

Donor
For comparison sake: the first heavier than air flight from London to Australia was in 1919 by Vickers Vimy bomber G-EAOU. It was accomplished in a hair-raising adventure, taking nearly a month and many stops to complete.

For commercial plane flights to succeed on the London to Sydney route, there would have been a necessity for fairly significant infrastructure at frequent intervals along the way. Planes of that era, weren't all that reliable - yet, and their range generally wasn't all that great - just yet.

The window for an airship operation was certainly narrow, but might have been workable for a few years
 
5 legs you would need at least 10 ships one going each way on each leg. Easier on each ship to have it only do the one leg back and forth for a while then shift to next leg closer to the refit base. 2 to 4 spares that you could have one in London, one in India, and one in Australia, and one in refit status.
 
5 legs you would need at least 10 ships one going each way on each leg. Easier on each ship to have it only do the one leg back and forth for a while then shift to next leg closer to the refit base. 2 to 4 spares that you could have one in London, one in India, and one in Australia, and one in refit status.

Even with a government subsidy, flying this route will be expensive so I'd imagine the passenger volume is low, one airship will give you a round trip once a month. I doubt the route would bear more than two trips a months. In the TL they build five Imperial Airships and they maintain a route Halifax-London-Cairo-Bombay-Singapore-Darwin-Sydney. There's a smaller airship maintaining a separate Cairo-Cape Town route.
 
5 legs you would need at least 10 ships one going each way on each leg. Easier on each ship to have it only do the one leg back and forth for a while then shift to next leg closer to the refit base. 2 to 4 spares that you could have one in London, one in India, and one in Australia, and one in refit status.
This works as an idea and in tales like this engineering often gets hand waved away.
That said [and noting ''at least''] I think trips need to be shorter [where they can] which means even more ships.
Which leads to the following thoughts
If this idea is to promote imperial unity split the routes ,the manufacture, the infrastructure into separate companies ,each one held by a dominion it gives them a stake in the enterprise
Any room for this man?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevil_Shute
 
Flying around bad weather at 80mph is going to be challenging. Doubly so if you only know where the weather is by eyeballing it or getting scattered reports by w/t.
Very Challenging on those occasions when the weather is moving as fast or faster than you are.
 
To offset costs, carry high-value cargo. Anything perishable, mail, small expensive items that onwers need to carry over faster than by land/ship...
 
The Bread and butter business will be hauling people and documents for the various Imperial Governments, with the famous and wealthy as window dressing.
 
The Bread and butter business will be hauling people and documents for the various Imperial Governments, with the famous and wealthy as window dressing.

I've found figures. There were air routes by the 30s but they averaged around 20-26 days in very short hops. The airships are a lot faster 13-15 days. Basically its a very high profile prestige project to haul high value cargos. Prime Ministers going to the quarterly Imperial Cabinet meetings and the like.
 
Even with a government subsidy, flying this route will be expensive so I'd imagine the passenger volume is low, one airship will give you a round trip once a month. I doubt the route would bear more than two trips a months. In the TL they build five Imperial Airships and they maintain a route Halifax-London-Cairo-Bombay-Singapore-Darwin-Sydney. There's a smaller airship maintaining a separate Cairo-Cape Town route.

A lot of the route outlined mirrors the later Empire Airmail Service, which had regular "Stations" with maintenance, fuel, and overnight facilities. This service started wih Handley Page biplane, and eventually used Short Calcutta, and Empire, flying boats.

Is this what you're basing the TL on, ? - If so, yes, it's doable, just the slower airships are going to take longer on each leg, and overall.

A way of making it viable, as with the airmail scheme, would be the Post Office mail subsidies, and developing feeder services in and out of each major, and some minor, stopover points , to locations of note, or importance, off the main route. Mail, again, would probably be the main driver of these sub - routes.
 
In the 1920's all international air services were expensive and subsidised, though the overland parts of the route won't be flown by airships for long as heavier than air aircraft will soon be able to do those sections quicker and cheaper than airships. It's the oceanic sections that the airships dominate up until the introduction of the Empire flyboats and PAN AM Clippers. So on the London to Sydney route you fly by plane to Mombasa then head out over the Indian Ocean to Perth possibly stopping in the Seychelles for fuel, then by plane onto Sydney.
 
A lot of the route outlined mirrors the later Empire Airmail Service, which had regular "Stations" with maintenance, fuel, and overnight facilities. This service started wih Handley Page biplane, and eventually used Short Calcutta, and Empire, flying boats.

Is this what you're basing the TL on, ? - If so, yes, it's doable, just the slower airships are going to take longer on each leg, and overall.

A way of making it viable, as with the airmail scheme, would be the Post Office mail subsidies, and developing feeder services in and out of each major, and some minor, stopover points , to locations of note, or importance, off the main route. Mail, again, would probably be the main driver of these sub - routes.

Yes it's based on the Empire airmail and serves much the same purpose plus is a very high visibility technological triumph for the Empire. Sort of an Apollo program sort of thing.
 
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