"SMITHY" SAILS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 62, 14 March 1930, Page 7

"SMITHY" SAILS.

Arrangements for Flight Across Atlantic. ULM FORCED TO STAY. (Received 11 a.m.) SYDNEY, this day. Squadron-Leader Kingsford Smith sails for the United States and England to-day to make arrangements for his proposed trans-Atlantic flight. FlightLieutenant Ulrn has been refused leave by Australian National Airways and consequently cannot accompany Smith. COST VERY HEAVY. Conveying Letters by Air in Australia. ONE SUBSIDY TO TERMINATE. CANBERRA, March 13. The Auditor-General discloses the fact that the cost of carrying letters by the aeroplanes operating in various parts of Australia is very heavy. The subsidy paid by the Government for one service represents £4 a letter, that paid to another 10/ and one to a third service 2/ a letter. The official claims that the cost is not justified. The Federal Government has decided to discontinue its subsidy of £28,000 a year to the Larkin Aircraft Supply, Limited, for the air mail services between Melbourne and Adelaide and Cootamundra, Mildura and Broken Hill on the grounds mentioned in the AuditorGeneral's report. The subsidies to the Queensland and Western Australian air services are to be continued. Captain Larkin, managing director of the company, says it will probably have to wind up, dismiss 100 employees and close down its large aircraft works. AMERICA TO JAPAN. NON-STOP FLIGHT PLANNED. NEW YORK, March 13. A message from Leonia, New Jersey, says Mr. J. Morton Sterling, an aeronautical engineer, announces that he intends to take off from San Francisco about May 1, on a non-stop flight to Nagasaki, Japan. Mr. Sterling will use a three-engined monoplane of his own design. It will carry a crew of eight. FATAL CRASH. TWO MEN KILLED. MELBOURNE, March 13. An aeroplane which failed to come out of a nose spin crashed from a height of 1000 ft near Essendon. The two occupants. Fred Ward, aged 23, and Ray Neville, 21, air mechanics, were killed. The machine was wrecked.