AIR TRAVEL

Evening Star, Issue 18280, 21 May 1923, Page 6

AIR TRAVEL

THE BURNEY SCHEME. PALATIAL LINERS TO BE BUILT. Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, May 20. The ‘ Sunday Express, dealing with the Imperial Airship Service., says that the Imperial Defence Committee and l Commander Burney are expected to complete all the details by May 29, when public support will he sought in the money market. Plans are ready for air liners capable of carrying 150 tons across the world at.a speed of eighty miles hourly. The airships will have the comfort and luxury of the largest liners, and will be as far ahead of their war-time predecessors as those were ahead of the old balloons.—A. and N.Z. Cable

It was recently stated by Lieutenantcommander Burney that within two months he hoped to conclude an agreement with the British Government to subsidise an airship service between Britain and India. He had been directly negotiating with the Government, and for the first time fixing the actual financial terms for the Imperial Airehip Sendee, and ho was confident that he w-ould conclude an agreement under which services ns far as Bombay would be heavily subsidised. “ Negotiations have advanced! to a point where the Government has reached two important decisions,” he said. “ First, it. will develop airships; and, second, it will develop them on Imperial and commercial lines. This achievement is largely due to the helpful backing of the dominions’ newspapers, combined with Admiralty pressure and that of advocates of Empire development in the House of Commons, who saved from destruction five airships and two of the largest bases recently under the hammer.

“ I regret that it is impossible immediaetly to extend the service from India to Australis. This would require £1,500,000 additional capital, with a yearly subsidy of £IOO,OOO. Nevertheless, the service to India will cut off ten days in the delivery of Australian mails. I am hopeful that Mr Bruce will carry out Mr Hughes’s intention of developing tho Australian end of the service, and will come to the Economic Conference fully empowered to _negotiate and conclude an agreement with tho airship syndicate. Wo have already taken an option on the existing bases at Bedford and Pulliam, and have drawn up plans to build six airships, 780 ft long, carrying 200 passengers, ten tons of mails, and capable of maintaining a regular service between Bedford and Bombay in sixlv-four to seventy hours, stopping only at Port Said. “ In order to make the service the safest possible, we are not using petrol for tho engines, but substituting crude oil, which is not so inflammable. are also blanketing the hydrogen containers with nonexplosive gas. Passengers will find the accommodation twice as good as an intercontinental train. It is really comparable to a train journey minus the noise and the fatigue,

“ I contemplate that the whole personnel will be Royal Naval Volunteer Reservists, thus making a favorable avenue for Australian defence. There is not tho slightest doubt that in the event of Australia subsidising the service certain airships will be based on Australia, and the majority of tho personnel secured there.”

Commander Burney declares that war in the future will be fought in the air over the Pacific. Ho points out that the latest airships are designed to carry and launch a mosquito fleet of wirelessly-controlled aeroplanes ind airships so powerful that it would bo possible to travel to Australia without alighting,_ getting more gas, or refueling. A bombing airship, travelling at only forty-five miles an hour, could cover 30,000 miles, ascend to heights where it ■would be immune, from aeroplane attack, and create its own smoke cloud so as to render tho efforts of the most expert gunners futile. The Burney airships are being designed with a view to their rapid conversion to war purposes. The commander has tecurcd tho services of Captain Scott, of the R 34.

Commander Burney is a typical naval man, quiet and unassuming, though of a striking personality. At present ho is employed by Vickers, Ltd., who, as well as other important corporations, are understood to bo financially assisting the scheme.