FLYING TIME.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 34, 10 February 1937, Page 7

FLYING TIME.

JUST OVER A WEEK. Plans for England to Sydney Air Services. EXTENDING EMPIRE LINKS. British Official Wireless. RUGBY, February 9. Four of the Empire class of Imperial Airways' flying boats, the Canopus. Centaurus, Cassiopeia and Castor, and two long-range boats, the Caledonia and Cambria, have all made trial flights from Hvthe to Alexandria via Marseilles, Brindisi and Athens. Oil the last of these; test flights passengers were carried. At present the flvinjr boats go only as far as Alexandria where passengers for the South tranship to land aeroplanes for Capetown and those for the cast proceed by land aeroplanes bound for India and Australia. In the current year a new organisation will be gradually built up until the flying boats go right through to their overseas Empire termini. They have a top speed of just under 200 miles an hour and carry 24 passengers. When the service is in full operation the journey from England to Sydney will take just over a week, and India will be reached in a little over three days. When the whole scheme is fully developed it is intended that letters to any Empire destination along the route will be carried for Ud per half ounce. '

POSTAL RATES.

AUSTRALIAN AGREEMENT. British Official Wireless. (Received 2 p.m.) RUGBY, February 9. The Under-Secretary for Air, Sir Philip Sassoon, in the House of Commons, said that the air mail agreement between Britain and Australia covered a period of lo years. It was subject to flying-boats proving satisfactory during the first two years, and the right of either party to withdraw at any time if the scheme is found, in the opinion of the General Advisory Committee representative of any of the Governments participating in the scheme, to be unsatisfactory in operation and incapable of suitable adjustment. The agreement will enable all firstclass mail from the United Kingdom to be carried by air to Australia at postal rates of lid per half-ounce when the scheme is "introduced, but the Commonwealth Government proposes to retain a surcharge of 4d per half-ounce on mail from Australia, subject to its right to adopt the principle of sending all firstclass mail by the service as, and when, it so desires.