AERIAL LUXURY

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 December 1936, Page 5

AERIAL LUXURY

A NEW FLYING-BOAT The Empire flying-boats, which surprised their makers as to speed and economy in operation, may be trusted equally to surprise passengers in matters of ease and comfort, wrote the aeronautical correspondent of “The Times” on November 11.' A trial trip to-day from the walers of the Medway among the rain, clouds, and bumps over Kent and the Thames estuary revealed more clearly than any description of design and construction the qualities of solidity and stability which have been built into this class of boats. The passenger who travels! in this type to the far places of the earth may expect to travel comfortably and often to find his liner sitting peacefully on the water without his knowing that she has ceased to be air-borne. The taking-off and alighting to-day were perhaps the most impressive features of the flight. Running across wind up, the Medway we had to follow one of the bends of the river while we accelerated, and the need to throttle down the port engines to make the turn to port lengthened the take-off. Nevertheless we were in the air within 21sec of the start of the take-off run and were quickly climbing into the bumpy air, spilled in cascades over the crests of lhe Kent hills. Half an hour later, after a circuit of some SO miles, we dropped calmly though steeply over Rochester Bridge to make soft but certain contact with the water and to pull up within 300 yards, so that we had to taxi up to our mooring near the jetty of Messrs. Short Brothers. NO THUDDING Those who have flown much in fly-ing-boats have come to expect the sensation of thudding and the sound as of bullets striking the hull during the period of take-off across even little waves. In the Centaurus to-day not even the swish of the waves thrown up by the hull could be heard. Standing al the windows of lhe promenade saloon one watched the waves dwindling gradually as the huge boat raised herself first on to the step in the middle of the hull and then quite clear of the water, but the only sensation was the pull of the Bristol engines and their variable-pitch airscrews. Alighting later, the hull pressed itself firmly into the water and as speed was lost settled right down, throwing up a final wave on either side which touched the after edge ot the wing just before the boat came to rest. We had dropped steeply over the river bridge with the help of the great flaps on the trailing edge of the wing. These roll outwards to give the wing a camber, to increase the wing area, and to serve as air brakes. Mr. J. Lankester Parker, the test pilot, had depressed them as we approached over Chatham, and we were able, flaps notwithstanding, to turn steadily and surely to port for : our final glide surface of the Medway tide. Those who wore seated in the smoking saloon, with their backs to the windows did not know when the boat touched the water,. * and those who were, taking their ! ease in the sleeping berths realised [lthat their flight was over only when the boat had lost way and was rock- ’ ing slightly while the man in the bow . cockpit picked up the mooring. On • this flight, at all events, the ingen- ' ious apparatus of hooks and straps which secure the bedclothes and in- > cidentally the passenger against the [ risk of slipping off the bed seemed t an entirely superfluous refinement. 165 MILES AN HOUR T In the air, with the engines throttled back td give only 60 per cent, of

their power, we made a steady airspeed of IGS miles an hour. As we turned northwards over the hill country towards the Thames and the Essex creeks we were barely conscious of the bumps of which the air must have been full or of the four engines and airscrews which were making their clatter in. the outer air. We learned afterwards that at one period an engine had been stopped deliberately so that the behaviour of the boat in an emergency might be noted. Passengers in the saloons noticed no change in trim or in the smoothness of their flight, and the hum of the engines was already so subdued that its diminution by onequarter failed to impress itself on the mind. While the flight was in progress the passengers wandered about the boat, trying a cushioned armchair here, a berth there, and a vantage point near a window elsewhere. Ample space and remarkable steadiness made a tour of inspection easy and natural. The passenger felt that he might happily live in such a boat on the journey of seven days and nights to Australia and that is a thought which has never occurred to him in any other airliner.