Operational History
Imperial Airways ordered eight aircraft which had all been delivered by 1933. The first service was flown from Croydon Airport to Brussels and then Cologne on 26 September 1932. The prototype G-ABPI left Croydon Airport on 5 January 1933 on a proving flight to Cape Town, South Africa. Three other aircraft joined it in South Africa to fly the service between Cape Town and Kisumu, although they proved to be too small for the traffic. On 1 July 1933, an Atalanta flew the first direct air mail service between London and Karachi. Two Indian-registered and two British-registered aircraft operated a Karachi-Calcutta service with was later extended to Rangoon and Singapore.
On 29 May 1933, G-ABTL flew through to Melbourne, Australia (arriving on 30 June) on a route survey flight.
Imperial withdrew the Atalanta from its African routes in 1937, with two being leased by Wilson Airways for operations in Kenya until July 1938. The African Atalantas were then transferred to India.
Three aircraft were lost before the Second World War and the remaining five aircraft were taken over by BOAC. In March 1941, they were impressed into use by the Royal Air Force in India, being used to ferry reinforcements to Iraq in response to the Rashid Ali uprising. In December 1941 they were handed over to the Indian Air Force for use on coastal reconnaissance duties, armed with a single .303 in (7.7 mm) machine gun operated by the navigator. The last patrol was flown on 30 August 1942 and the two survivors were transferred to transport duties where they continued in use until June 1944.
Read more about this topic: Armstrong Whitworth Atalanta
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