CHANNEL AIR SERVICE

Evening Star, Issue 18033, 29 July 1922, Page 11

CHANNEL AIR SERVICE

A VISIT TO BRUSSELS. OVER THE BATTLEFIELDS. What can you take in the 301 b free allowance of baggage on the air-line from London to Brussels? I had to spend forty-eight crowded hours in Brussels, including an afternoon reception by M. Max, the heroic burgomaster, an evening conversazione, two luncheons, a solemn session of the Belgian Academy, a Royal garden party, and a banquet (writes _a correspondent of 'The Times’). It is true, extra baggage can bo paid for, but it was entirely to my satisfaction that_ a morning suit and silk hat, an evening suit, and the various accessories and ordinary travelling requisites scaled just ovep29lto. The air-line ’bus, a glittering kind of road Pullman, left Northumberland avenue at 10.35 in the morning, after waiting three minutes for a belated passenger,” passed Westminster, and traversed so many tamed and trimmed, commons that I thought a view of suburban amenities was deliberately included in the trip. It reached the Croydon aerodrome at 11.25. The geography of South London -is doubtless an addition to knowledge, but it is a pity that more than a third of the total time required for transit from London to Brussels should be occupied by a few miles road transport at either end. JTHE TAPESTRY OF KENT.

I was the Only passenger for Brussels, and in a short ten minutes the easy formalities were gone through. The Napier-Lion engine was already buzzing, and before I had time to think the machine was roaring along the ground, almost too bumpy even for my padded chair, and then with a smooth comfort glidmg up a gentle incline till, at about 500 ft, it circled round and headed eastwards for Dover.

I had dressed warmly, expecting a sudden change from the heat of London last Tuesday, but by the time the altimeter read nearly 3,CCOft. I was hotter than over I had been flying over the South Sudan or Uganda. I took off my coat and waistcoat, opened the window, and lay back and grilled. At 3,000 ft tho fields and the woods of Kent drifted past as if a gorgeous tapestry were being unrolled. Just now, before the flush of summer has_ come, each field is highly textured, showing a warp and woof of cultivation amazingly regular, the hops a check of green on brown, the young wheat and hay a green-ribbed velvet, the woods least like a fabric, but resembling a thick moss growing on a bog. Suddenly the blue Channel appeared, edged with golden sand, the white cliffs, so familiar from sea, almost insignificant —at most a line of haze between the green land and the yellow’ shore. We struck out at an angle across the sea. Three minutes after we were over the water the coast of France was visible, again the white cliffs flattened down to the faintest streak, the broad band of sands being the conspicuous edge of the land. But I wish that all those who still believe England safe in insular security could see the narrowness of the Channel on a clear day from an aeroplane. Five minutes after leaving England it seem? as if you could throw a stone to either shore, and you realise at once that aeroplanes have for all time changed the fundamental conditions of national defence. THE WAR AREA.

We crossed the French shore with Calais on the right, and, slightly changing the direction, were soon in sight of Dunkerque and over the battle areas of Western Flanders. Two results of the war were vividly evident. First, tho whole of that_ populous country seems to have been wrimilt, or at least reroofed; there was no piece of the outspread map as large as a postage stamp without new roofs in flaring red. Next there was a broad zone pockmarked with shell holes. Some of them

were still black pits in the green or brown fields; others no more than round stains, like fox-marks on a shabby billiard table. You could see that the boundaries had been restored, the fields and farms reallotted, beasts and men rehoused; that human effort and kindly Nature had conspired to clean up the mess. But the surface of the earth was stained with a corroding acid whoso drops had bitten deep into its-texture.

The aeroplane scarcely rocked, and the only means of appreciating the speed at which we were hurrying towards Brussels was to watch the shadow of the wings as they passed swiftly over the fields, moving from village to village almost at the pace that the seconds hand of a watch moves round the dial. A few minutes before 1 o’clock the horizon ahead seemed slowly to tip up, displaying a great expanse of wood, through which grey towers and long lines of grey streets were visible. The altimeter showed that we were descending rapidlv; we crossed a broad area of railway lines beyond which were the sheds of the aerodrome with the white circle mark-' ingtho centre. The engine was switched off, and in the sudden silence the landscape tipped up to the sky and revolved beneath us at an incredible pace; the engine was switched on again, and wo skimmed over the surface of the grass, bumped, and rebounded, and in a moment were “taxi-ing” up to the sheds. The Customs formalities took less than five minutes; a car was -waiting, and in twenty minutes I was at the door of my hotel in Brussels. A HONEYMOON TRIP. On the return journey, last Thursday, I had four companions—an American couple returning from a honeymoon trip through Europe, a young Englishman, and a Belgian. The engine misbehaved at first; after wc had all taken our scats and the door had been dosed, two hefty men, taking turns at the starting handle, failed to get her going for nearly ten minutes — an annoying trick to which almost ©very high-powered internal combustion engine is occasionally liable. It was a little disconcerting to those who were making their first trip, and anyone of any imagination is inclined to he nervous on a first trip. Were I in control of a passenger ah' station, I should not let passengers take their places until the engine had- been started. But that was the only incident; there was a nice breeze, and we were in the air almost before the passengers realised that the journey had begun. There were many thunder clouds hanging about, and we rest steadily to between ■5,000 and 6,000 feet, .so that the pace, judged by our passing over the ground, seemed slower. The Channel was covered by a thick layer of fog, looking as if a sky covered with roll cumuli were reflected in it, and our course had to b© altered more than once to avoid storms. But again there was no unpleasant motion, and the lady, who told ns that she had to keep her berth all across the Atlantic in the Lusitania, came no nearer disaster than to lie back and to look pale for five minutes. On the English side the weather was bettor, and we~hurried across Kent and Surrey at a low elevation and what seamed a great speed. The wind had been against us all the way, and we reached Croydon in two hours and twenty minutes, five minutes before the arrival of the Paris aeroplane, which had started at the same time and had done the twenty miles longer trip in rather quicker time. It carried two passengers, also on their first trip, and as happy over it as my companions. , I cannot imagine why the air services are not more used. It was my first experience as an ordinary traveller, choosing that means of transport for speed. The comfort and convenience are much greater than by train and ship, and fatigue does not exist. You arrive as fresh as when you started, and have had a journey of great beauty. When it becomes too familiar, it is as easy to read or write in an aeroplane as in a train. Doubtless my two crossings were fortunate in weather. But, for my part, I am never quite well on a Channel crossing, and I have never happened to be “airsick.” ■