F-AQAA Airspeed Airspeed
A.S.6J Envoy III
(c/n 70)
When the Basque country in the northeast of Spain
was cut off from the French section during
the Civil War in 1936, the Basques decided to create an airline to
connect Bilbao with several
different cities as a means of keeping contact with the outside
world. . A small airline, Air
Pyrenees
was formed with no less than six Aircpeed Envoys.
They also had a couple of
Caudrom C.449 Goelands. The above image is from the
Airspeed company, taken probably
before delivery. The titling "Air Pyrenees' was made in large
black lettering below the cabin
windows. The juxtaposition of this shot does not show whether
this had been applied at that
time or not. . Although based in Bilboa, the aircraft were
registered in France, possibly to
present them as "foreign" owned. However, this did not stop the
nationalists from shooting
down several of them. When Franco's nationalists won the war, the
remainder of the fleet
passed to LAPE.