VICTORIAN AIR PORT

Evening Star, Issue 19614, 21 July 1927, Page 15

VICTORIAN AIR PORT

OH BANKS OF THE VARDA .EMPIRE'S SOUTHERNMOST TERMINAL An aerial mail service will shortly be running regularly between Perth and Adelaide, with a probable extension to Canberra and Sydney (states the Melbourne ‘ Argus ’). At Perth it will link with the well-established service of the north-west coast between Perth and Derby and the successful lines now running with marked regularity between Melbourne, the Riverina, Adelaide, and Broken Hill. This will make a continuous flying route operating about three-quarters of the distance around the continent. An additional connection to fill the gap between Sydney and Brisbane, which may be installed any day, will carry the northern section on to Longreach, Cloncurry, and Darwin. An extension from Broome to Darwin will eventually complete the chain, and girdle Australia with 10,000 miles of air traffic. These developments will quickly come to pass. Naturally the attention of a sensationloving public in concentrated on the dramatic incidents in aerial enterprises. “Stunt” flying, the breaking of record achievements in speed and endurance, the hazardous flights over stormy seas, the victories and the tragedies of every flying adventure keep humanity cheering and gasping, and sometimes shuddering. By comparison, the routine trips of air buses daily up and down the continent have little interest. But it is in these conventional, almost humdrum, jonrncyings that tho greatest progress in aerial navigation is made. Tho prosaic fact that West Australian Airways, Limited, on one side of the continent and Quantas on the other have flown machines regularly day by day, in calm-air and in storms, faithfully to time-table over a total distance of i,495.964 miles iu six years is by far tho most important fact_ in aviation as it affects the people of this country. Indeed, it is acclaimed as one of the most notable achievements in tho whole field of aviation throughout the world. There Las been a tendency in England lately to deplore the fact that British aviators hold no records in prosent-day spectacular flying contests. In the wider interest of safe aerial navigation this really does not matter. The aim is “ safe flying for everybody,” not desperate hazards undertaken by flying aces who aspire to dazzle by an occasional meteoric flight. Aerially considered, Melbourne is not a junction nor a wayside station, but it is “the” terminal station. Excepting Tasmania, it is the most southerly point or all tho flying routes. Will all aerial transports in the future dip to this terminal or will they stop short of this city or glance aside? This question, propounded to the directors of the present actively operating Melbourne system, provokes the reply that Melbourne, if it so desired, could not escape its destined ranking as the pre-eminent aerial station in this part of the Tenders for the projected firing mail service between Perth and the eastern States have provided for extensions from Adelaide to Melbourne, thence to Canberra and Sydney. Already the Adelaide-Hay-Sydncy service, directed from Melbourne by Australian Aerial Service, Ltd., ensures a direct desnatch of overseas mails to Sydney, and the same service has a direct connection fvnm Melbourne to tho overland lino at Hay.

Hay, in the Riverina, seems fated to become linked in an important way with Melbourne, as it is already an air junction, where eight planes on tho southern transcontinental service drop and meet regularly on every trip, with a difference of only twenty minutes between . the connections. From Hay, also, a route is projected north-east to Brisbane: thence to Charlevillo a link with the Quantas system has been both projected and approved. This will carry the circuit on through Western Queensland to far Camooweal. A V-shapctl route to Darwin and Derby, already mapped out, will complete the circuit of tho Commonwealth. There is every reason to believe that Australia will bo tho first of all continents to bo completely ringed with a safe and regular mail and passenger aeroplane service. Tho circuit will bo 10,000 miles—at least three times the length of the flight from New York to Paris. More than half this long route is now being covered daily by machines that come and go as regularly as railway trains, but keeping much bettor time than trains and with infinitely less “ fuss ” and expense. Tho latest statistical return shows that in the last fh r e years Australian regular aerial services have flown a total of 1,495.964 miles in 19.515,100 flying hours, carrying 0,957 passengers in single journeys, as well as 135,14011) of freight and 1,034,493 letters. And in all these continent-wide journeyings in five years tho number of passengers fatally injured has been—two! When and where aerial services from Great Britain may be expected to link with Australian air lines is, no doubt, of interesting conjecture, and will still be the subject of many dramatic adventures. It may be that the gas-boruo airships will ultimately dominate the long world routes. If they do, they will find their southern terminal in the air port of Melbourne. Already sites have been pre-empted here for mooring masts. But it is satisfactory to know that whenever tho managers of tho overseas lines bring their services to Australia they will find n continental itinerary of aeroplanes well established and ready to pick up ami set down passengers in connection with oversees journeyings at any point around the continent. Planes will be built at the Coode Island air port and factory in steadily increasing numbers, as required for peaceful commercial transport. That is the primary purpose. But the Commonwealth Government, realising tho vital necessity for having aerial fleets, skilled flyers to man them, and trained mechanics to make them, and complete manufacturing equipment always on hand, has given special encouragement to the foundation of the aeroplane indnstry_in Australia. The Coode Island plant is the first to ho laid down, and it had been planned with every improvement suggested by study of aircraft plants abroad. It is capable of any desired expansion, and is expected to give Melbourne a permanent lead in Australian aviation, and make it the greatest aerial depot in the Southern Hemisphere. ■ Other factories will ho built in different parts of the continent to serve a network of mail and passenger airways; and if the dire necessity of mobilising for war should at any time arise, any invader venturing here should find that bo has stirred up a vast hornets’ nest, with power to sting as deadly ns Fmgland’s fleet of sloops and sailing boats under Sir Francis Drake when they destroyed the maritime power of Spain. -