FLYING BOATS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 251, 22 October 1937, Page 14

FLYING BOATS.

FOR 50 PASSENGERS.

AUSTRALIA-NEW ZEALAND.

| LONG OCEAN CROSSING.

{By Telegraph.—Special to "Star.") WELLINGTON, this day. Giant flying boats, capable of carrying 50 passengers, are being considered for the Australian-New Zealand air service next vear, it i* learned hero.

The flying boats are enormous craft weighing about 42 tons when they are fully loaded, which moans that they will be twice the size of the machine* used in the first flights for the transatlantic service, tests for which have recently Im>oii carried out. Their cruising speed will be round about 200 miles an hour, and their ordinary passenger capacity will be 50, with room for 75 people on shorter runs. Mail storage room, however, may cut down this capacity a little.

From what is learned here it appears that the decision of the American company operating the Atlantic service to build larger flying boats resulted in Imperial Airways determining to make tcst.s with craft of a similar size. The 40-ton Boeing supcr-Clippera which are being built for the Atlantic service, will, of course, also l»e used by Pan-American Airways, in their Pacific service to New Zealand. This American move has made Imperial Airways decide to build flying boats of comparable type so that they would be available for the Atlantic flying at the same time as the Americans put them into operation. And this mean* that the craft will be available for tho trans-Tasman service also, | if it is determined to use them.

The long °ccan crossing is one of the reasons for considering the employment of the larger flying boats, though it is expected that ultimately, provided that the runi] and pa«*enger traffic between Australia and Britain prove satisfactory, they will be used between London and Sydney within five years.