Ken Ellis explains why the Handley Page HP.42 was the Concorde of its day

‘Horatius’ outside the floodlit Croydon terminal
KEC
Anthony Fokker, Dutch aviation pioneer and founder of the manufacturing dynasty that carried his name, was proud of his company’s range of monoplane airliners. By the early 1930s the F.VII tri-motor was world-famous, Fokker had broken into the American market and four-engined designs were emerging.