NEW AIR TRAVEL

Evening Post, Issue 86, 8 October 1936, Page 9

NEW AIR TRAVEL

LINKS WITH AMERICA

FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

FACILITIES LISTED

Pan-American Airways is, in many respects, the most remarkable and the most powerful air organisation in the world, writes Major C. C. Turner in the "Daily Telegraph." It is the first, and, so far, only American air line company to pay a dividend. It links North with South America. It has regular services between the most important cities in Brazil, Argentina, the West Indies, Bolivia, and Chile. It spans the Pacific from San Francisco to Honolulu, and on to China, where ere long it will be in travel touch with Imperial Airways. It ha*s 40,006 miles of airways, serving 33 American countries and colonies, and owns 140 airliners, including the big Martin and Sikorsky flying-boats. During my recent air travel in the United States I have studied the resources of this company with special reference to the possibilities conjured up by new projects for British-Ameri-can services over the Atlantic. Bermuda will be a station on a North Atlantic service, and before the present year is out a British flyingboat may be engaged in experimental flying between Bermuda and New York. It must be pointed out, however, that the Anglo-American agreement in respect of an experimental service between Bermuda and New York—the terms of which were announced recentjy_and agreements relating to services between Great Britain, the United States of America, and Canada are not exclusive agreements. A similar agreement has been entered into by the United States and Germany, and one is about to be, or is already, concluded between the United States and France. EXPERIMENTAL FLIGHTS. Experimental flights are intended very shortly between Hamburg and New York, and the German operators will use a "mother" aircraft ship halfway across the ocean. Their success on the South Atlantic route by this method appears to justify its trial on the North Atlantic. Bermuda appears to be destined to play a great part in North Atlantic air communications, although in some seasons a more northerly, shorter route between Great Britain and Newfoundland should be feasible. Pan-American Airways will certainly establish a link between Miami and Bermuda, which will inevitably become a kind of ocean Clapham Junction. The establishment of such links is all-important, for the immediate result will be a big increase of traffic over all the lines concerned. This increase will show itself throughout the Empire system of Imperial Airways, . and throughout Pan-American Airways. There will be an immediate big demand for more flying-boats, and for personnel of all kinds. I doubt whether the world realises the big air travel developments which are close at hand, and whether the air-line operators, British or American, are making anything like adequate prep: rations. On the Pacific side San Francisco is the airport. Here, Pan-America is constructing a flying-boat port adjoining the land, aerodrome, and close to the terminus of United Airways' great Continental system. Sea and land airports will be within ten minutes of the centre of San Francisco. The sea airport will be 4000 ft by 1000 ft, and have a minimum depth of 10ft. l Miami, on the edge of Florida, is the Atlantic base, as it is now the base for the services to Jamaica, Brazil, and Argentin At Miami there is a vast enthusiasm for "squeezing the water out of the map," as they call it—bringing the ocean-separated countries closer together. ■ A MODEL AIRPORT. Miami's port is surely the model to which the great flying-boat ports of the future will conform. In the centre of its great hall is a constantly-rotating metal globe, on which, upon the map of the world, all the principal air lines are marked. Its diameter is 10ft. The scale of the map thereon is 1: 4,000,000; that is, lin to 64 miles, or l-64in to 1 mile. The ball and its fittings weigh 65001b. An electric motor rotates the globe, each revolution occupying two minutes. The globe is oriented accurately, so that its North Pole points to the North Star. ■ Miami airport and passenger station are the largest and finest in the world. They cost £140,000. They can deal with 500 air passengers per day, without confusion. Four airliners can be loaded or unloaded simultaneously at the four canopied pipers. International air mail and merchandise shipments are handled through the terminal building without interfering with the passenger accommodations. The air passenger never sees the handling of mails or freight, and his baggage is placed ashore and taken on elevators to the Customs counter, where he resumes contact with it.

On the first floor there is a large lobby and waiting-room, offices of the public health service, immigration and Customs examinations rooms. There is. a post office, a traffic counter providing room for eight clerks, information desk, traffic office, pilots' room, port captain's office, clearance office, and room for port personnel, public telephone and telegraph facilities.

On the second floor there is a diningroom with open deck overlooking Biscayne Bay. This dining-room can accommodate 100 diners and has a bar and lunch-room adjacent. There are also on the second floor two promenade decks where the public can observe the arrival and departure of aeroplanes and passengers. OVER THE PACIFIC ROUTE. ' The ground floor has a series of passageways so arranged as to separate incoming and outgoing passengers. Passengers are directed by loud-speaker \ to this or that numbered pier, and when they are assembled they are admitted to the covered way which takes them straight to the gangway over which they step into the "Clipper ship." It is all well-ordered routine, carried out with celerity and without fuss. The "Clipper ships" range from 40----and 20-seater Sikorskys to six-seaters arid small amphibians. The company also runs land aeroplane services from its aerodrome at Miami, and this aerodrome is used also by Eastern Airways lines running to'the north and New York.

The air route across the Pacific is now very near regularisation and complete establishment both for passengers and for mails. Most of the early difficulties had been overcome when I visited the terminus at San Francisco and saw the China Clipper, one of tha new Martin flying-boats, come in from Honolulu, and met Mr. Edwin Musick and his crew as they stepped ashore.

Meeting these men, and discussing with them their work, and learning of the oompany's projects from its manners, leave no shadow of doubt in one's mind ot.tfie full-success-awhich,