BIG AIR LINERS.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18634, 8 March 1926, Page 3

BIG AIR LINERS.

I TWELVE DAYS TO AUSTRALIA., (from our own correspondent.) LONDON, January 26. Airships capablo of comfortably accommodating 100 passengers and their baggage, and of crossing from England to Australia within ten or twelve days, were spoken of as a possibility of the very near future by Air Vice-Marshal Sir S. Brancker, in a lecture delivered by him at the Overseas League on "Air Transport and the Empire." He mentioned that tfco big airships were on order, and that they would be used in the first place to establish experimental services with India. These ships, he said, should cross at about sixty-fivo miles an hour, and would have the capacity above referred to. There would be two-berth sleeping cabins, a dining saloon which would seat fifty persons at a time, a lounge which would accommodate all the passengers. Unfortunately, economy was in the wind, and the progress in tho construction of these airships might be very considerably delayed. _ They were intended to go as far as Karachi, and if >the experimental services proved a success then undoubtedly arrangements would be made to continue the journeys to Australia, the total voyage taking from ten to twelve days. During the past six years British commercial aviators had flown some 5,000,000 miles, and there had only been five fatal accidents. The expense of air transport was also decreasing. and once we had got all-metal aircraft, which was within our reach, charges would drop still further. The cross-Chan-nel services had always been looked upon as n form of experiment. They were experiments from which should be learned lessons that would be applied to the Imperial air routes. Our natural gravitation was towards the East. England had started a Cairo-Karachi service, and Australia had already started to meet her. The meeting would probably take place eventually at Singapore.