AVIATION NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 26, 1 February 1932, Page 7

AVIATION NOTES

NIGHT FLYING COURSE

LATEST AIR LINERS

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

LONDON, 23rd December,

Splendid examples of the modern, more efficient passenger aeroplane are the Handley Page biplane giants ordered by Imperial Airways for the operation of the company's European and Indian routes. These machines furnish travel comfort unprecedented, in civil aviation. They bear aloft a large pay load; they are endowed with a wide safety margin, and yet they are considerably faster than earlier craft of comparable size.

Kecent careful tests of "Horatius," one of a fleet of eight of thes-o huge biplanes ordered by Imperial Airways, have shown that the machine attains in level flight at a height of 4600 ft a speed of no less than 136 miles m hour, in spite of an all-up weight exceeding thirteen tons. At the other end of the scale "Horatius" continued to fly level with the air apced indicator showing 4S miles an hour, and is capable therefore of a range of speed greater than any other air liner in regular service. Speed range means safety. In an emergency, ability to come in to land at slow speed might make all the difference) between mere inconvenience and disaster. "Horatius" justifies the British_ policy of air-line development, which puts safety and regularity first and economical speed a close second. A special course in night flying lately added to the comprehensive training schemes supplied by Britain's international "Air University" at Hamble, on Southampton Water, is another indication of the modern trend towards scientific aviation.

Pilots who wish to take the course must have flown at least 95 hours "solo." They are instructed in dusk landings, night landings with the help of ground flares, and night landings with only the light given by flarea carried at the wing-tips. After a period of "dual" tuition, with tho instructor in tho other cockpit, the pupil goes through all theso manoeuvres by himself, and in addition he has to make a cross-country flight in darkness. Tho fee charged for tho special course is £50, and the competent pupil is eligible for the school's certificate of proficiency in this branch of the aeronautical art.