Aeroplane Photographic Archive

There was little agonising over what this month's archive picture should be — it had to be Handley Page, and it had to be iconic. Unsurprisingly, we chose the company's magnificent symbol of the golden age of air travel — the elegant H.P.42. What is surprising, however, is the fact that it has never made an appearance in Picture of the Month before! The epitome of Imperial Airways' graceful early-1930s fleet of thoroughly modern silver airliners, the H.P.42 was developed into two variants: the H.P.42E (Eastern) for long-haul routes to the Middle East and beyond, and the H.P.42W (Western) for Imperial's famous flights to Paris and other European cities. This example, G-AAXE, named Hengist, started off as one of the latter in December 1931, but was refitted as an E in 1934, before its sad demise in a hangar fire in Karachi in May 1937.


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