THE GREAT LINER

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 96, 20 October 1934, Page 10

THE GREAT LINER

IS ITS COURSE NOW RUN ?

RISE OF AEROPLANES

The Queen Mary, giant Cunard liner, largest object afloat, has just been launched, says a writer in the Sydney "Daily Telegraph." .

Will bigger boats bo built, or will future' overseas traffic pass from the ocean to the air?

The huge British liner Queen Mary is such a giant structure that in some ways her size defeats her efficiency. For instance, she could not run the ordinary Australian route, as she is too big for the Suez Canal. Nor could she get through the Panama Canal. To launch her the Clyde had to be both widened and deepened. The building of bigger liners in tho future will, of course, depend on the development of , aircraft —the challenge of sea-traffle by that of. the air. At present boat-builders laugh at tho aircraft people. The Queen. Mary carries about 4000 passengers, and gives them every luxury they can obtain on shore. She has on board 165 chefs and 400 waiters, not to mention thearmy of stewards who will look after passengers' comfort like so many hospital nurses. The liner is'practically a floating city. So it is easy for the "water advocates" to laugh at the trans-oceanic trips recently made by the largest airvessels to date. The largest commercial airship in commission, the Graf Zeppelin, carries a crew of 47 and only 50 passengers. Bigger airships have carried up to 207 passengers as a tour-de-force, but this does not include sleeping accommodation. The Graf Zeppelin certainly has an observation deck, a lounge, and a dining-room, seating 38, as well as 25 state-rooms. She is on the AfricaSputh America ocean route (which sho has crossed about a dozen times), her fastest trip being a little over six days. A EOUGH TIME. But, being a lighter-than-air vessel, a glorified balloon, her passengers in only a moderate storm have a rough time, while travellers on board the Queen Mary would hardly be affected. And the crashes of recent larger airships are not likely to make airship-travelling popular. What of the heavier-than-air sky-liners? The most recent trans-oceanic passage of a giant aeroplane was that of the (German) Dornier Dox. She carries 54 passengers and a crew of 15 (though 100 can crowd in on short flights), and made a ' successful round-the-world flight a few! years ago, though it was admittedly a ticklish job. The Dornier Dox had a combined lounge-and-dining-room, besides staterooms, but the Queen Mary people would consider them mere dog-boxes, and point to the luxurious swimmingbaths, shops, promenades, dancingfloors, lounges, gymnasiums, tennis courts, and theatres carried by the modern liner. Even in the "last word" in trans-^ ocean aeroplanes, the 32-passenger flying boat 5.42 (just completed in America for a regular South Atlantic crossing), or the French 60-passenger Santos Dumont (for the same run), the travellers have a cramped passage in comparison. But the boat-builders may be living just now in a fool's paradise. It may come to the story of the hansom-cab and the motor-car again. The cab, in early motoring days, had everything in its favour—noiselessness, comfort, reliability. It looked as if the rattletrap motor-car of King Edward's days could offer the traveller nothing which was not more efficiently duplicated in the horse-drawn vehicle. But it could. It offered speed. MAY END ITS EEIGN. Speed! It ended the reign of. the horse-cab in short order; it may end the reign of tho giant liner. It is the one'thing in which at present .the air can triumph over tho sea. And looking at the matter froni this standpoint, tho writing is already on the wall. The Queen Mary's mammoth engines develop 200,000. horsepower. All that giant force, unleashed, can only drive her along at just on 40 miles, an hour. . Yet the Graf Zeppelin, with only 530 horse-power, makes 80 miles an hour, and commercial aeroplanes make four times the Queon Mary's- speed. Even the huge Dornier Dox could hit up 131 miles an hour, fully loaded with passengers and cargo. The latest light-metal transoceanic passenger aeroplanes, such as the 5.42, are faster still. The aeroplane builders do- not claim that an aeroplane the size of the Queen Mary (she is 1120 feet long) could take the air—certainly that would, be impossible with present engines and fuel. • But a fleet of equally luxurious airliners, carrying (say) a tenth of the number of the Queen Mary's passengers, is feasible enough even no%v. Ten of these could cater for the sealiner's passengers, and give them a four times faster trip in the bargain. Noting how the aeroplane is gradually wresting mail-carrying from the railway train on land, and slowly cutting into rail passenger traffic, it should be a far easier matter eventually to supersede the slow sea-boat. In fact, it seems possißle that the Queen Mary will not have many more giant successors before the overseas passenger traffic will be gradually eaten into, by mammoth liners of the j air.