Princess Xenia (aircraft)

Princess Xenia was a Fokker F.VIIa aircraft, built in 1925 for the Dutch airline KLM and initially used for regular journeys between Amsterdam and London via Rotterdam. In 1927, it was bought by a wealthy American who was married to a Russian princess and named the aircraft Princess Xenia after her. He loaned the aircraft to aviator Robert Henry McIntosh, also known as 'All-Weather Mac'. In 1927, McIntosh and two others flew the aircraft in an attempt to make the east-to-west transatlantic flight, but failed. Princess Xenia was subsequently commissioned to fly non-stop from London to India, though unsuccessfully.

The aircraft was later sold to the consortium 'Air Communications Ltd' and given the name of The Spider by Mary Russell, Duchess of Bedford, who on 2 August 1929, with Captain C. D. Barnard, departed on a record-breaking flight from Lympne Airport to Karachi (then in British India) and returned to Croydon Airport, England, in less than eight days. It subsequently broke the record for a flight from London to Cape Town and back.

In 1934 the aircraft was sold to Sir Dossabhoy Hormusjee Bhiwandiwalla in Bombay (now Mumbai). It was broken up in 1937.