PACIFIC AIR SERVICE

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 243, 11 July 1938, Page 10

PACIFIC AIR SERVICE

Tests Of First Boeing Clippers

ALTERATION IN ROUTE

Dominion Special Service.

Auckland, July 10.

No reason for the suggested removal of one of Pan-American Airways’ bases on the South Pacific air route from Pago Pago, American Samoa, has been given, although it is understood that either Rose Island or Canton Island would provide better conditions all the year round than may be expected at. Pago Pago. No advice of the alteration in route has been received by Mr. Harold Gatty, special representative of Pan-Americaii Airways in New Zealand and Australia.

Tests of the Clippers. Tests of the first of the Boeing Clippers, the 41-ton flying-boats ordered by Pan-American Airways for the Atlantic and Pacific routes, are proceeding, according to advice received by Mr. Gatty from the United States. He said that no date for the resumption of the service to Auckland had yet been announced. This depended largely on when the Boeings, of which six had been ordered, were completed and tested. There should, however, be little time between the delivery of the first two ships, the production being managed in such a way as to minimise delay.

Weather history of the South Pacific based on the results of daily observations collated and forwarded to the United States by Mr. 15. B. Buxton, Pan-American meteorologist in Auckland, has now been recorded for more than a year. This will be of immense value to the company when it is ready to resume the service to Auckland.