Silver City air ferry.

This one of my favourite photos (dated 9-52 on the rear), and shows an early Hillman Minx driving onto a Bristol 170 series Freighter (the 'Biffo'). A number of these aircraft were operated by Silver City, ferrying cars, by air, between England and France in the late 1940s and into the 1950s and 1960s.

Bristol freighter operated by Silver City

Bristol freighter operated by Silver City

Silver City aircraft on a magazine cover

After publishing this page on oldclassiccar, I stumbled across this old magazine in a box of paperwork, which features a pair of Silver City aircraft on the cover, one flying, and the other unloading its cargo of E-Series Vauxhalls.

The magazine dates to 1955, and contains an article about flying these lovely old machines.

Silver City were set up after WW2, operating three Avro Lancastrians, which were civilian-ised versions of the RAF's four engined bomber. These were soon joined by several Douglas DC-3 Dakotas, the operation now located at the Blackbushe airport. The Bristol 170 first joined their fleet on lease in 1947, and inspired the company's owner to set up new service, enabling the rapid air transportation of civilian vehicles, and their passengers, back and forth across the Channel. The first flight of this new service, from Lympne in Kent, took place in July 1948, and a report appeared a couple of weeks later in a contemporary motoring magazine, singing this service's praises.

In 1954 the company moved to it's own new airfield, named Ferryfield, at Lydd in Kent. Cost to fly a car to the Continent was £25, with an extra £4 charged for each passenger, flights taking their cargo to Le Touquet airfield in France. In the late 1950s, Silver City changed hands, ultimately ending up being taken over and the aircraft re-branded as British United Airways (BUA), still operating the car ferry service with the old Bristol Freighters. The final air ferry trip was made in 1971.

Comfort in the Bristol Freighter was not it's strong point, not forgetting that it started out in life as a transport aircraft for the RAF. The Silver City fleet had clam-type opening doors, into which the car(s) were driven. The design of the loading area was altered over time, to allow greater headroom, which explains why the doors differ in some photographs of the Silver City aeroplanes.

A magazine in 1948 tested out the new air service between Lympne and Le Touquet, taking an Armstrong Siddeley Lancaster along for the flight. It was necessary to pre-book one's flight, and arrive 1 hour before take-off. Customs was dealt with on arrival, and members of the Silver City staff took responsibility for loading the car into the Freighter's hold and securely chaining it down. The crossing, from England to France, was approximately 42 miles, and this took 20 minutes or so with an English-speaking company rep meeting the passengers on the other side.

There were a few rules that applied to the cars being carried - they could have their fuel tanks filled up to 3/4 of their maximum capacity, and on arrival in France, petrol coupons to the equivalent of 40 gallons would be issued by the customs office. These early flights could hold two reasonably sized cars - a Bentley MkVI accompanying the Armstrong Siddeley on this particular flight. Passengers during the flight sat in their own cabin to the rear of the aircraft, rather than inside the cars. Although flying a car over to the Continent cost more than going by sea, the great time savings more than made up for the extra expense in the opinion of the journalists on that early trip

From what I can tell, the Silver City service is now looked back at with great fondness, opening up as it did the Continent to many people who had not previously set foot on foreign turf. On this site there are some interesting scans showing timetables issued by Silver City.

Another old photo of a car-carrying aircraft, this time showing a Land Rover boarding an RAF Beverley, can be seen on this page.

Return to the old transport photos - Page 5.

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