AIR-MAIL TERMINAL

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 264, 4 August 1937, Page 9

AIR-MAIL TERMINAL

Federal Cabinet Decides on Rose Bay, Sydney RESIDENTS’ HOSTILITY By Telegraph.—Press Assn. —Copyright. (Received August 3, 10.55 p.m.) Canberra, August 3. The Federal Cabinet, after long consideration, lias decided to establish the overseas air mail terminal at Rose Bay. An inside harbour will lie ready for the inauguration of the flying-boat service in January. The base will eventually be at Botany Bay, which is expected to become a huge airport embracing both land and water machines in the vicinity of Mascot Aerodrome, Only passengers and mails will be handled at Rose Bay. Repairs will be carried out elsewhere. decision has been greatly delayed and hampered by the hostility of citizens in the Rose Bay area who raised all manner of objections to the terminal being in their district, which contains fine homes and residential sites. BRITISH AIR-MAIL SCHEME Linking-up the Empire ‘'Dominion” Special Service.—By Air Mall. London, July 10. The new British air mail has started, and 1937 will go down to posterity as one of the most important dates in the history of British Empire postal communications since Rowland Hill introduced the penny postage nearly a hundred years ago. For the first time the benefits of air transport are within reach of all sections of the people. When the system is complete, a letter weighing less than half an ounce and bearing an ordinary IJd. stamp will only have to be posted in any street box, in order to be carried by express air mail to any country within the British Empire. The authorities decided to open up first the section between England and South Africa, and for months intensive preparations were in progress all along the 7600-mlle route. Seaplane bases have been established on the Nile and along the East African coast from Mombasa to Durban; extra, wireless has been provided-and guiding beacons set up. The first flight was made at the end of June by the new Imperial Airways flying boat Centurion. She carried about' 100,000 letters, including one from the King to the Governor of South Africa. The Air Minister and the Postmaster-General, together with representatives of the South African Government, arrived at Southampton to see her start. An inauguration ceremony was held on board the s.s. Medina, which was moored close to the raft'by which the Centurion was lying, when it was announced by the chairman of Imperial Airways that, before the end of the year, the scheme would include India, Burma and Malaya, and that it was hoped to extend the service to Australia and New Zealand at the beginning of next year. Feeder Services. Feeder line services were started at various points along the main Empire routes in 1936, and the volume of mails carried increased by 30 per cent. The branch line to connect the West Coast of Africa with the main services began to operate early in that year between Khartoum and Kano. It has since been extended to Lagos, but, owing to the risk of spreading yellow fever, it cannot be opened to passengers until certain precautions have been taken. In India there are now air mail services between Karachi and Lahore, and Karachi and Madras. Inland lakes will be used as seaplane halts and bases will be established on the River Jumna. Experimental flights have been made between Madras and Ceylon. Commercial air operations from Rangoon have been opened with seaplanes to work up the River Irrawaddy. In Iraq, the flying-boats will rely chiefly on the Tigris. The final extension of the routes to Canada involves the establishment of a regular service between Ireland and Newfoundland across the North Atlantic—a distance of 1900 miles. Bases have been established art the month of the Shannon, at Botwood in Newfoundland, and at Montreal. The first trial crossings, from east to west and west to east respectively, were completed on July 6, within scheduled times and without incident, by the Caledonia of Imperial Airways amd a Sikorsky 428 clipper of Pan-American Airways. These test flights will be continued throughout the summer. There are 94 aerodromes In Canada, but the new Empire service, in order to carry the mails westward to Vancouver, will require many more aerodromes and landing stages. It is expected that they will be ready at about the same time as the tegular trans-Atlantic services begin. Tasinan Sea Route.

Experiments destined to link up Australia; and New Zealand are also being carried out in order to establish the route across the Tajsman Sea, and in the current year’s Air Estimates provision is being made for a series of trial flights. Meanwhile, New Zealand hag established an efficient interior airmail service.

This whole gigantic network of communications has been made possible by the steady progress of the British aircraft industry, in particular with regard to engine reliability. The organisation of the scheme is a great Imperial partnership, for all the countries concerned have agreed to contribute to its cost. Fifteen Empire countries participate in the first stage—which links up Great Britain with South Africa—and twice that number in the second. At the outset mails will take six or seven days to reach Durban, but when the airports have been completely equipped with wireless apparatus and new lighting systems, and the routes fully provided with wireless or visual beacons so that night flying can be extended, the time will be reduced to four or five days. At .first there will be three services a week to East Africa and two to South Africa. Eventually, mails will reach Australia in less than seven days, which means that Sydney will be within as short a posting time of London as Edinburgh was in 1840. The scheme is not being put into operation without a certain risk, for it may entail a loss to the General Post Office, during the first year, of as much as £200,000.