IMPERIAL AIRWAYS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 33, 9 February 1927, Page 9

IMPERIAL AIRWAYS

BASES FOR AIRSHIPS

BRITISH EXPERTS ON TOUR

(United Press Association.—Copyright.) LONDON, 7th February.

A series of visits by officers from the Airship Department has begun with a view to consulting the Dominions and investigating the possibilities of the erection of bases and mooring masts along the proposed new airship routes.

Flight-Lieutenant Sydney Nixon has gone to Freetown, Sierra Leone, and Bathurst, Gambia, whence he goes to Capetown. There he will meet other experts leaving London later.

The mission will probably spend six weeks in Australia, returning via Egypt.

Bathurst, at the mouth of the Gambia Biver, West Africa, is the nearest British port in Africa to Britain. Freetown, further down the coast, is the capital of Sierra Leone. Gibraltar is about half way between Britain and Bathurst.

These places are no doubt being "considered in reference to an All-Red western route from London to the Cape. The eastern route would be via Cairo and Kenya Colony. Most of the territory on this coast of Africa is British, and it was along this route that Sir Alan Cobham and the Air Force .Squadron flew between London and Capetown.