A HUNDRED years ago the British aviation industry was experiencing rapid growth with the formation of the state-owned Imperial Airways, writes Jamie Bowman.

Imperial Airways’ strength would be the long-range Empire routes to far off places such as the Far East, Hong Kong, India, Malaya and South Africa, but the company also set about trying to push into Europe, with the development of flying boats leading to the first successful commercial flying boat service being introduced with flights to and from the Channel Island in 1923.

With its huge importance as a port it was inevitable Liverpool would get in on the action and preparations were made to construct the Rock Ferry Seaplane Station by Rock Ferry Pier.

The plane chosen to serve the River Mersey was the evocatively named Calcutta. The flying boat had an open cockpit featuring dual controls with a radio cabin behind plus galley and toilet facilities along with three crew members and seating for up to 15 passengers.

It was not until February 1929 that Calcutta G-EBVH joined Imperial Airways, having already made its first flight on May 3, 1928, and not long after it began to fly the glamorous sounding Genoa-Alexandria route via Ostia, Naples, Corfu, Athens, Souda Bay and Tobruk, for which it was named ‘City of Athens’.

A few months later ‘City of Athens’ was diverted back to the UK and the grandly titled Liverpool Marine Aerodrome at Rock Ferry which was now being operated by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board.

The flight scheduled was an experimental journey to Belfast with the inaugural voyage scheduled for Saturday, September 22 1928 when 12 distinguished guests were flown to Northern Ireland and treated to a civic luncheon on arrival at Belfast.

The first week was deemed a success so it was decided to continue into a second week. However the aircraft was damaged and returned to Southampton for repairs; it never returned and instead was used on the Channel Islands service.

Flying boats would never return to the River Mersey and there wasn’t much of a future either for City of Athens which would be renamed City of Stonehaven before being passed on to Air Pilots Training Ltd at Hamble in Hampshire where she was reduced to spares in September 1937.