JUBILEE FLIGHT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 99, 29 April 1935, Page 8

JUBILEE FLIGHT.

TASMAN BOTH WAYS

KINGSFORD SMITH'S PLANS

AIR MAIL FACILITIES. (By Telegroph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. Sir Charles Kingsford Smith's transTasnian flight, coining as it does during the King's Silver Jubilee celebrations, will be utilised, states the acting-Prime Minister, Mr. A. Ransom, for a distinctive commemoration in which Australia and New Zealand will be specially concerned. A proposal was received from the Commonwealth Government recently that a King's Silver Jubilee mail should be carried by Sir Charles' aeroplane in both directions, and this was readily agreed to by the New Zealand Government, the arrangements being already in hand by the Director-General of the Post and Telegraph Department. According to present information, the Southern Cross will leave the Richmond aerodrome, Sydney, on May 14, and land at New Plymouth next morning. It is expected that the return flight will commence from Ninety Mile Beach at dawn on May 17. Full information for those who wish to take advantage of this Silver Jubilee air mail, both from Australia and New Zealand and on the return trip, will be published at an early date.

NEW AIR MAIL STAMPS

SPECIAL NEW ZEALAND SET,

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, this day.

A new set of New Zealand air mail stamps will be used for the first time in connection with the King's silver jubilee trans-Tasman flight by the Southern Cross. There are three values, namely Id, 3d and (id, and the same design is used throughout the series. The design was drawn by Mr. J. Berry, of Wellington, from suggestions made by the Post and Telegraph Department. It depicts an interesting blending of the ancient and modern. The main scene is show by the lettering of the stamp as "a New Zealand air mail terminal." A large aeroplane is about to land and there is a smaller one outside a hangar near a motor car. In the distance is a snow-capped mountain and a forest. On the left, standing under a cabbage palm, a Maori in full war dress is watching this modern innovation. The stamps are reproduced by the intaglio line engraving process from plates prepared bv the Commonwealth Government stamp printer. The engraving is particularly fine, and the use of a magnifying glass will reveal additional details.

The printing is being done by the New Zealand Government printer," and the colour of the penny denomination is the carmine of the sixpenny value of the King George issue. The threepenny air mail stamp is the purple used for the fourpenny King George, and the sixpenny is reproduced in the blue of the fivepenny King George.

To enable Australians to secure souvenir letters of the double flight. supplies of the New Zealand air mail stamps are being sent to Sydney and Melbourne this week. The air mail postage to Australia is 7d for half an ounce.