THE GREAT LINER.

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXXI, Issue 12398, 10 November 1934, Page 9

THE GREAT LINER.

IS ITS COURSE NOW RUN?

RISE OF AEROPLANES

The Queen Mary, giant Ounarcl liner, largest object afloat, has just been launched, says a writer in the Sydney “Daily Telegraph.” Will bigger boats bo built, or will future overseas traffic pass from ' the ocean to the nir? The huge British liner Queen Mai’v is such a giant structure that in some ways her size defeats hor efficiency.

The building of bigger liners in the future will, of course, depend on the development of aircraft—the challenge of sea-traffic by that of the.air. At present boat-builders laugh, at the aircraft people. The Queen Mary carries about 4000 passengers and gives them every luxury they can obtain on shore. She has on board 165 chefs and 400 waiters, not to mention the army of stewards who will look after passengers’ comfort like so many hospital nurses. The liner is practically a- floating city. So it is easy for the “water advocates” to laugh at the trans-nceanic trips recently made by ilie largest air-vessels to date. The largest commercial airship in commission, the Graf Zeppelin, carries a crew of 47. and only 50 passengers. Bigger airships have carried up.to 207 passengers as a. tour-de-force, lmt this does not include sleeping accommodation. The Graf Zeppelin certainly has an observation deck, a lounge, and a dining-room, seating 38, as well as 25 .staterooms, gho is on the AfricaSouth America ocean route (which she lias crossed about a dozen times), her fastest trip being a little over six days

A ROUGH TIME. But, being a lightor-thon-air vessel, a glorified balloon, her passengers in only a. moderate storm have a rough time, while travellers on hoard the Queen Mary would hardly ho aifacted. And the crashes- of recent larger airships are not- likely to .make airship travelling popular. What of the heavier-than-air sky-liners'-' Hie most recent 'trans-oceauic passage ‘of a giant aeroplane was that .of the (Germftn) Dernier box. She carries 54 passengers and a crew of lo (though 100 can crowd in on short flights), and made a successful round-the-world flight a few years ago, though it was admittedly a ticklish job.

The Dornier Dos bad a combined 1 oungo-and-clining-ronm. besides staterooms, but the Queen Mary people would consider them mere dog-boxes, and point to the luxurious swimmingbaths, shops, promenades, dancingfloors, lounges, gymnasiums, tennis courts, and theatres carried by the modern liner.

Even in the “last word” in transocean aeroplanes, the 32-passenger flying-boat 5.42 (just completed in America, lor a regular South Atlantic crossing), or the French 60-pas-senger Santos Dumont (lor the same run), the travellers have a cramped passage in comparison. But the boatbuilders may bo living just now in a fool’s paradise. It may come to the story of the hansom-cab and the mo-tor-car again. The cab, in early motoring days, had everything in its favour noiselessness, comfort, reliability, It looked as if the rattletrap motor-car of King Edward’s days could offer the traveller nothing which was nob more efficiently duplicated in the horse-drawn vehicle. But it could. It offered speed.

MAY END ITS REIGN. Speed! It ended the reign of the horse-cab in short order; it may end the reign of the giant liner. It is one thing in which at present the nil* can triumph over the son. And looking at the matter from this standpoint, the writing is already on the wall. The Queen Mary’s mammoth engines develop 200,000 horse-power. All that giant force, unleashed, can only drive her along at just on 40 miles an hour.

Yet the Graf Zeppelin, with only 530 horse-power, makes SO miles an hour, and commercial aeroplanes make four times the Queen Maiy s speed. Even the huge Dornier J)ox could hit. up 131 miles an Hour, fully loaded with passengers and cargo. The latest light-metal transoceanic passenger aeroplanes, such as the 5.42, aro faster still.

The aeroplane builders do not claim that an aeroplane the size of the Queen Mary (slio is 11.20 loot long) could take the air—certainly that would bo impossible with present engines and fuel. But a fleet of equally luxurious airliners, carrying (say) a tenth of the number of the Queen Mary’s passengers, is feasible enough even now. Ten of these could cater for the seal him" s passengers, and give them a four times faster trip in the bargain. Noting how the aeroplane is gradually wresting mail-carrying from the railway train on land, and slowly cutting into rail passenger traffic, it should be a far easier matter eventually to 'supersede the slow ;sea-hoat. In fact, it seems possible that the Queen Mary will mot have many more giant successors before the overseas passenger traffic will be gradually eaten into by mammoth liners of the gir,