EMPIRE AIR SERVICES.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 206, 31 August 1926, Page 6

EMPIRE AIR SERVICES.

Captain Cobham is now speeding back towards England, after the greatest of all his wonderful in the air. His flight ia more than an adventure, it will lay the foundation of

an extension of the Empire air services io Australia and Xew Zealand. The commercial possibilities of flight are very, inadequately realised, but there is a dawning ' comprehension of their great value, and before long fast and frequent services will be established throughout the British Empire. The question of whether heavier than air machines or giant dirigibles should be used has been one of the factors in delaying progress, but that problem is now in a fair way towards solution.

The many disasters which befel the airships both in Europe and the United States brought them into disfavour, but later experimental work is eliminating many of the factors of danger, and the production of new and safer types is now assured. It seems likely that these will be used for long voyages, and that from their termini 'plane services will fly to all points of the compass in comparatively short jumps, linking up the whole Empire in a series of rapid services impossible, owing to physical reasons, for the 'plane alone.

At the present time two great airships are under construction in Britain. Each will have a capacity of five million cubic feet, and each will carry a hundred passengers and a crew of fifty, besides mails and twenty tons of freignt.

These ships will bring India within a week of England, and when suitable masts are erected, will continue on to reach Australia in ten days, and New Zealand in a fortnight, according to Sir Samuel Hoare, Secretary for Air. A complete organisation, including landing grounds and air ports will be necessary before these services are inaugurated, but when they do take up their regular running smaller lines radiating from them will form a local scries of internal communication, all connected with a system which will join the Empire from end to end.

These lines will form the backbone of Imperial communication, and they will be of great value to the statesmen and to the commerce of the whole Empire. They will also become a useful weapon in defence, and an invaluable instrument in Imperial unity.