TASMAN FLYING-BOATS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 139, 15 June 1939, Page 11

TASMAN FLYING-BOATS

THE FIRST DELIVERY

PROBABLE LEISURELY FLIGHT

(By Air Mail, from "The Post's" London Representative.) LONDON, May 26. One of the three flying-boats for the trans-Tasman air service is to leave England for Auckland on a delivery flight beginning at the end of June. Whether the Aotearoa, the Australia, or the Awarua will be sent is not quite clear at the moment. At present the Awarua is the only one of the flying-boats to bear New Zealand registration marks, the other two having been re-registered with British identifications with a view to their being transferred to the Empire service pending the inauguration of the Sydney-Auckland service. In view of representations made from New Zealand, however, there is a possibility that the registration on the Aotearoa may- again be altered and that this flying-boat may be the first of the three to ,be delivered. The date of departure has not yet !been announced, nor has any estimation of the arrival date in Auckland i been given. As it will be a delivery flight only it is indicated that it may be of a leisurely nature. After arrival in Auckland, it is stated; the flying-boat will be used for the training of pilots and crews who will subsequently be engaged on the Auckland-Sydney route. • New Zealanders who expressed disapproval of the hyphens inserted in the word "Aotearoa" in the nameplate of the flying-boat, shown in photographs published in the Dominion, may be interested to learn that the necessary alterations have been ordered by imperial Airways on the receipt of a cable efrom Union Airways.