REPARATIONS BY AIR.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 232, 1 October 1925, Page 10

REPARATIONS BY AIR.

£10.000.000 CARGO. UNDER ARMED GUARD. BROUGHT FROM GERMAN!. .From Our Special LONDON". August 20. At noon to-day a large monoplane with ? Mt low at the bottom oi ine iii-elai-e and three engines pulling it through the .-.ir loomed out of trie haze surrounding Oroydon Aerodrome, elided <iow>, and lauded. The moiiopiane contained bonds ".o the value of £9.660.----000. '«.■.ng a tirst instalment >ent irom Germany to the Bank .•? England under the Dawes Reparations :v.-heme. A second consignment is due shortly. As '.lie -i in.kers monoplane came to rest [•oliee arid officials surrounded it. and a Bank of England bullion van backed up to receive the precious contents. Two official- of the German J>eM Commission. Herr Hientscbe and Herr Sornmerlad. first emerged, followed hy numerous >uit-cascs. Tension then ro~e high, and someone in his anxiety broke the g'.as* lane in the door M the aeroplane, which evoked an exclamation fram the onlooker- "Why not triplex': At last two stalwart porters dratrei-i out a heavy canvas sack ol ihe colour which the call "field grey." and deposited it in the van. It wits obviously full of papers, and it was marked No. 1. li: all twenty such bagwere transferred from the aeroplane U> the bullion van. so presumably each ba? was worth nearly bail a million pound-. Never before ha> such a valuable cargo been entrusted to an aeroplane. Safest Means of Transport. When all the "oasis had heen saicly transferred the van. sufficiently guarded. drove off and attention could te dire.-ted once more to the unusual eralt which had brought the treasure from Germany to England. It is interesting to speculate why the German authorities selected an aeroplane as the means of carrying these bonds to England. It i- notorious that aircraft are the safest vehicles for the conveyame of valuables, and for that reason jewellers commonly use aerial transport tor their parcels. Probably, however, the chief object was to encourage German aircraft work, and perhaps to draw attention to the difficulty put in )". S

Wav by the restrictions drawn up by tne Allies.'

This type of Junker= monoplane is fitted with three Junker* engines, each developing a nominal 39.">-h.p. I'nder the rules the may not build a machine of such power. Therefore they chartered this one from the Swedish firm which resrularly use? these Junkers on the service Malmo-C'opei:-hagen-Hamburg-Amsterdam. Captain G. F. C. Tlorman. who was at Croydon aerodrome partly to see his machine arrive and partly to discuss co-opera-tion with Imperial Airways. Ltd.. told mc that even with tic ]SO-h.p. engines (which may not be u-ed on the mac-nme in Germany i the monoplane required ail three eng.nes to carry the load which it had on t»oard to-day—namely, a load oi two and a half tons. With less powerful engines it could not haeve carried the load. With a normal load of ten passengers the machine can maintain level flight on any two of the engines.