LANDING SCHEME.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 170, 20 July 1935, Page 13

LANDING SCHEME.

'PLANES IN LONDON

PLATFORM FOR LINERS

A €5,000,000 PROPOSITION

(Special.—By Air Mail.)

LONDON, June 29

A £3,000,000 scheme for a great landing platform for air liners high above the street at Cannon Street railway station, London, is now being considered by the City Lands Committee of the City Corporation. Tho committee are investigating possible sites and plans for an airport in the heart of the city. Air Ministry opinion has been sought. Experts from the Ministry have attended meetings of the committee.

Operators of the principal air lines have been asked for their opinion on tho scheme, and most of them have said they are willing to co-operate if the plan can be proved practicable. The airport would be a vast platform with long runways radiating from it in every prevailing wind direction, so that aeroplanes could land in any wind. The whole structure would be at least 400 ft above tho street level. St. Paul's Cathedral, the highest building in the city, is 305 ft high.

Critics, of the scheme point out that in a typical London fog the platform would be useless. The radio beacon, used in America and Germany and other European countries, with the aid of which the pilot can fly entirely blind, is the answer to that. The platform would be supported by a great skyscraper building, and it is estimated that the rents from offices iu tho skyscraper, combined with landing foes from air liners using the airport, would pay off tho £.5,000,000 initial cost in ten years.