Talk:Handley Page H.P.42

HP42/HP45
"The HP42 and HP 45 designations were Handley Page's identifiers but this was not commonly known at the time"

I don't understand what this means; it implies that people in the 1930's couldn't work out that HP stood for Handley Page. However, I've found a website that states that the HP designation for both was HP 45 and that this was not publicly known for a while. Is this what was intended? Britmax 12:04, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * It means that there were two slightly different variants built, the HP42 and the HP45, but that both were generally known as HP42's.

Regarding the G-AAXC Heracles
The Heracles is NOT the specific plane that appears in Message pour l'éternité - that plane is clearly identified on several panel as a fictional G-AAXJ Horus, both the name and the identifier code being plainly visible in several panels. The backstory given on page 18 spells this out clearly when it states the plane was a (still fictional) ninth plane built for the Foreign Office for diplomatic mail transport.

While the name Heracles is used in the actual book, it is always used to describe the overall plane model (ie, "an Handley-Page Heracles"), not the specific plane.--65.94.12.90 (talk) 06:18, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Fully seconding this comment, I did my best to edit up to it. Jan olieslagers (talk) 13:49, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

"Remembered"
The HP 42-45 airliners "are well remembered." By centenarians, perhaps? The planes are are interesting bit of aviation history, but in 2008 few people would "remember" them.

It would be interesting to know what sort of propellers (airscrews) those are — four-blade or contra-rotating? Certainly unusual for the '20s and '30s. Sca (talk) 19:26, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

The props are four-blade, fixed pitch (having watched a film clip). TimS00 (talk) 08:22, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

1931 accident to G-AAGX
According to this forum G-AAGX suffered an accident on 8 August 1931 at Tatlingbury Farm, Tudeley (it's actually in Five Oak Green), losing its tail against a telegraph pole. Can we verify this from a RS please? Mjroots (talk) 17:30, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Found a RS, The Times covered it. Mjroots (talk) 18:25, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Passenger Capacity
There appears to be a major discrepancy between this article and a contemporary report of this aircraft. In 'Flight' of 21st November 1930, in a review of the H.P.42, " A machine which can carry 42 persons - namely, 38 passengers, two pilots and two attendants - at a cruising speed of upwards of 100 mph marks a new era in the history of British air transport." This is the same as quoted for the H.P.45, and it seems most unlikely there would be that much difference between the two versions.Winter Ghost (talk) 21:32, 21 December 2012 (UTC)Winter GhostWinter Ghost (talk) 21:32, 21 December 2012 (UTC)


 * The article does mention that the HP.42W has seats for 38 which agrees with Flight. Remember the HP.45 designation was a later invention and not used at the time. MilborneOne (talk) 09:02, 22 December 2012 (UTC)


 * A 1937 documentary "Air Outpost" featuring Hanno here:  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.11.216 (talk) 19:18, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

No fatal accidents?
The Imperial Airways main article makes it sound like there WAS a fatal accident to this very class of plane: "On 1 Mar 1940, H.P.42 Hannibal crashed in the Gulf of Oman en route from Jiwani, in Baluchistan to Sharjah, killing everyone aboard." It offers this ref. Am I mistaken? Is this not the same make of plane? If so, please remove my tag and my apologies. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 00:16, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Your observation is correct - your interpretation of the text is not. The text clearly states while in civilian service. The tragic loss in the Gulf of Oman occurred after the planes had been requisitioned for RAF service. Jan olieslagers (talk) 01:40, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Ah, there you go. I've removed the disputed tag. thanks, Shawn in Montreal (talk) 03:10, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Colourized picture
I'm not sure its OK to use a colourized picture. The picture does look fantastic - whoever did it did a wonderful job. But my concern is that it's now not encyclopedic as elements of the picture now includes small speculations on the part of the person who did it, like the colour of the man's green tie. What are other people's thoughts on this? I don't know if WP itself has guidelines on colourized pictures.Catsmeat (talk) 08:50, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I am not sure of any guideline but as you say it could be misleading. MilborneOne (talk) 09:31, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
 * No worse than using a picture of a model - and we have a few of those, or a profile illustration (ditto), and the colour is a nice addition to an otherwise colourless article. If there are no other colour shots and there is no reason to believe there is a gross error in the colouration, and since the colour of a tie is not relevant to anything, there should be no problem with it. Actually, the blue should be darker as the blue used was at least as dark as midnight blue, the red on the fuel cart should be brighter, and the colour of the props should be a warmer brown - an excellent job otherwise at bringing the photo to life. One of the challenges of interpreting photos of the period is that blue tended to show lighter and red darker than it really was because of the orthochromatic film used whose sensitivity was not consistent across the colour spectrum - and the use of random colours that cannot be checked by contemporary sources (such as the tie no-one is really going to care about). Most of the colours can be checked - we know the exhaust collector colour from surviving examples, the IAL blue from original source documents, and we know the colours of the shell cart from colour advertising. The props ARE brown, but aren't the same shade as used in the few contemporary paintings showing them stopped - all of which show the silver doped finish. The colours of the clothing IS speculative, but about something that really isn't something anyone will be using as a reference, particularly if the image is labelled as being recently colourized.&#32;- NiD.29 (talk) 04:49, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

What was Vieille's plane?
The text mentions Eugene Vieille flying an unidentified H.P.42 from Cairo to Britain in December 1939 and having to bail out due to the aircraft's engines icing up. The pilot bailing out would presumably have led to the aircraft being destroyed, but the following list of all eight H.P.42/45s does not mention any one of them being lost in that month or in that manner. The same story is repeated on Vieille's own Wikipedia page, but again no identification of the specific aircraft is given. What was this mystery plane -- an uncatalogued prototype or a totally different type altogether, or did Vieille's copilot land the plane after the head pilot chickened out?--Death Bredon (talk) 14:49, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I removed the section from here because it is clear that it isn't one of the aircraft built - so could be either entirely fictional, or mistaken as to the type of aircraft. No clue what it actually was, and the reference is too obscure to even verify.&#32;- NiD.29 (talk) 12:34, 20 July 2024 (UTC)