ATLANTIC CROSSING

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 56, 8 March 1937, Page 6

ATLANTIC CROSSING

THE BRITISH AIRCRAFT

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, January 23.

First experimental flights across the North Atlantic, in preparation for establishment of the regular AngloAmerican services, will take place in the late spring or early summer. They will engage the two Short four-engined monoplane boats which have been specially fitted with long-range fuel tanks, and probably the Mayo composite aircraft now scheduled for trial flights in the spring. By that time, also, the first of the high-speed Albatross four-engined\ land aeroplanes built by the de Havilland Company may be ready for the ocean crossing. The recent achievement of the "Caledonia," one of the long-range boats, in flying non-stop nearly 1700 miles from Alexandria to Marseilles in little more than eleven hours, has demonstrated the powers of the craft in striking fashion. Mr. Gouge, chief Short designer, has revealed that the maximum non-stop range of the "Caledonia" is no less than 3800 miles in still air, while against a steady 40 miles anhour gale the craft can fly no less than 2450 miles at an air speed of 160 miles an hour 0r2700 miles at an air speed of 143 miles an hour.

Five of these boats have left the Short works. Three of them are engaged in the Mediterranean. The fifth is destined for the New York-Ber-muda run. The ''bearer aeroplane" of the first Mayo composite aircraft, the British invention that seeks to combine large payload and long range in one and the same aeroplane by arranging for it to be launched in mid-air from the back of another and much.bigger machine, will be a modified form o£ the Empire boats. Helped by a substantial sum provided by the Air Ministry. Imperial Airways placed the first order for a Mayo composite aeroplane, and will be charged with the long'-dislance air-mail experiments for which the craft is chiefly J"l°"rf'"l-