LONG AIR CRUISE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 234, 4 October 1927, Page 7

LONG AIR CRUISE.

SINGAPORE VENTURE. R.A.F. Flight From England Via Australia. GREATEST UNDERTAKING YET. (British Official Wireless.) (Received 12 noon.) RUGBY, October 3. Further particulars are now available of the 25,000 miles cruise from England to India, Singapore and Australia and the Far East, to be undertaken this month by four Royal Air Force seaplanes.

The machines are of the Southampton type and each is equipped with an allmetal hull, which is about 9001b lighter than the old wooden hull and have two 450 horse-power Napier-Lion engines^

They will leave Plymouth on October 17 and are fitted to fly independent of shore help except for mooring and refuelling. Thus the crews will cook their meals and sleep aboard and rations and spare parts will be carried.

Group-Captain Cave-Brown-Cave will be in command, and in addition to the pilots, mechanics, riggers and wireless operators will be carried.

The tour is undoubtedly the most ambitious service flight yet contemplated. In the early stages of the flight the machines will fly to the French seaplane station at Hourtin, near Bordeaux, then overland to Berne, continuing via Naples, Brindisi and Alexandretta, and across the Syrian Desert to the Euphrates.

The machines will stay some time at Karachi before beginning the cruise of the Indian coast line. They will call at Colombo en route for Calcutta, and from there they will proceed via Rangoon to Singapore, where they will make a halt.

Afterwards they will go via the Dutch East Indian islands to the Australian seaboard, flying round to Fremantle, and then proceeding via Melbourne to Port Darwin and afterwards back to Singapore.

The programme will occupy about 12 months.