TASMAN AIR LINE

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 35, 4 November 1933, Page 6

TASMAN AIR LINE

Passengers and Mails OPINION OF EXPERT Possible Within Ten Years Dominion Special Service. Auckland, November 3. The opinion that a passenger and air mail service across the Tasman was a reasonable extension of the proposed England to Australia service within the next ten years was expressed byMr. W. Hudson Fysh, managing director of Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services, Limited, who is a through passenger on the Monterey on his way home to Australia. A pilot during the war, Mr. Fysh travelled from Australia to England in the Imperial Airways plane, Astraea, which made a special survey flight in connection with the proposed extension of the airway service from Singapore to Australia. He went to England to gather information likely to be of value to his company in tendering for the contract for the extension of the service from Singapore. In the course of his investigations he travelled on the main British, French, German, and Dutch airway lines, and also flew across the United States in the latest American Boeing ’plane, which has a cruising speed of 160 miles per hour. The Imperial Airways service between London and Paris was more impressive than any others he saw, the planes in this service carrying up to 38 passengers. They flew in all kinds of weather aud kept excellently to their time-tables. In the matter of speed the American services were well ahead of all others for the reason that that type of aviation had been specially developed in the States. Commercial aviation in Great Britain, he said, was making tremendous strides. It was proposed, said Mr. Fysh, that the trip from England to Australia should occupy' 16 days. That time, he thought, compared favourably with any other similar service iu the world. It was far better to lay a new and difficult service ou sure foundations and then improve it as conditions warranted than to aim at speed alone. The proposed time-table had been fixed by the British and Australian Governments, the schedule allowing for 16 days on the journey, which reduced Ihe time occupied on steamer routes by half. He said it could not be compared with the time occupied by planes in tlie trans America services, in which 1300 air lighthouses, each burning a light of 2,000.000 candle-power, ninde night flying practicable. If night flying was to be attempted on the Eng-land-Australia route some similar scheme of lighting would have to be considered. The most difficult stretch of the journey between England and Australia, said Mr. Fysh, would be the crossing of the Timor Sea, a distance of 520 miles, which would be the longest ocean span covered by any air service in the world. For such a flight machines of extreme safety were essential, and nothing but four-engined craft could be considered. In both England and America, he said, keen interest was being taken in the proposed trans-Atlantic service, and he believed such a service would become a fact within a few years.