SEA AIR LINES.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19413, 12 September 1928, Page 7

SEA AIR LINES.

FOKKER'S forecast. Within three years trans pacific and trana-Atlantie flights will bo made on regular schedules. This is the production made -recently by Anthony Fokker, who designed and built the Southern Cross, in an interview praising the skill of its crew. He added: "Already motors, are reliable and 'planes have shown that they can,, lift great loads and weather storms- JBadio and radio beacons will guide flyers over oceans, and, in a few years, eontinents will be brought much closer together. But it will always, require able pilots to fly good 'planes. "Trans-ocean 'planes will be built and will be available when the demand for them arrives," Fokker concluded, declaring that, the Southern Cross hhs ably demonstrated its worth. "It is the second 'plane I have built in America, Byrd's Pole, 'plane was the first." v

AIR GEAR-BOX. REVOLUTIONISE FLYING 7 The compound wing devies, a ; near equivalent ,'4o an automobile's gearbos, invented by Mr A- P- Wragg, of Melbourne, , has been tried out BUceeiß.fully on. a Sikorsky 'plane at Garden City (New York), . 1 The device, which may be nsed by the Australian explorer,-Sir George Wilklns, on .Ws Antarctic flights, vastly Inoreases the safety of,'places, enabling them to take off from and land on $ smaller runway. Both Mr Wragg and Mr Sikorskyare enthusiastic Regarding the possibilities that- the invention offers .for thefuture o# aviation, V MTYm .predicted Wragg pound wing offers the'deVfee^needed 1 "to make;flying.safer -than; a®l a? popular as, motoring, ' ■ - -a e ;