The Aviation Historian — January 2018

Issue No 22 THE AVIATION HISTORIAN 39

O

N JULY 30, 1914, Norwegian aviator

Tryggve Gran made the first direct

flight across the North Sea, north-

east from Scotland to Norway — but

his effort was overshadowed by

the outbreak of the First World War, which was

already gathering pace. Five years later, another

Norwegian, Capt Wilhelm Meisterlin, along with

Gran, pioneered the first flight from the UK to

Norway via a land route, taking several weeks

in a Handley Page O/400 to fly from England

to Christiania (Oslo from 1925) in Norway, via

The Netherlands and Denmark. However, it

would take until 1933 for a bold Norwegian pilot

to cross the cold, deep waters of the North Sea

southbound from Norway to the UK.

To get to London from Norway in the period

immediately after the First World War was far

from easy; Norwegian shipping company Fred

Olsen & Co had a direct fast steamer ship service

from Oslo to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where

passengers then transferred to a train to London,

a journey that took some three days.

In the autumn of 1920 KLM Royal Dutch

Airlines, Germany’s Deutsche Luftreederei, the

UK’s Air Transport & Travel and Denmark’s

Det Danske Luftfartselskab (DDL) inaugurated

a joint air service from Copenhagen to London

via Hamburg, Bremen and Amsterdam. Those

travelling from Norway still had to take a ferry

or train to the Danish capital to join the air

service to London. Little changed in the 1920s.

GUNNESTAD’S IDEA

Norwegian Alf Gunnestad was born on May 17,

1904, and became interested in aviation from a

very early age after watching naval seaplanes

crossing the skies above his house in Våle.

Gunnestad underwent flying training with the

Norwegian Army Air Services and obtained

his flying certificate in 1925. Four years later, he

purchased a de Havilland D.H.60X Moth, which

he crashed spectacularly in the streets of Calais

during its delivery flight on March 19, 1929.

After a period spent recovering in a French

hospital, he returned to England to look for

a new aircraft. Manchester-based A.V. Roe &

Co offered a Cirrus-engined Avro Avian IV

for £628 11s 9d, as well as an Avro agency for

Norway. Gunnestad took off from Manchester

in the Avian on May 29, 1929, and, flying via

Croydon—Brussels—Antwerp—Düsseldorf—

The first flight between the UK and Norway was made as far back as 1914, but it was not

until the early 1930s that ambitious Norwegian aviator Alf Gunnestad suggested opening

up a direct air route from Oslo to London. Scandinavian aviation specialist ROB MULDER

details Gunnestad’s pioneering North Sea crossing made in a Lockheed Vega 85 years ago

OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP Alf Gunnestad (1904–87) is the subject of the author’s definitive Norwegian-language book

Alf Gunnestad: Flypioner, published in 2017 (for details visit http://www.europeanairlines.no). ABOVE Gunnestad (left)

and Leif Feiring beside Halle & Peterson’s de Havilland D.H.60M N-30 (c/n 1345) at Gothenburg circa 1929–30.

GUNNESTAD COLLECTION x 2