QUEER CARGOES IN THE AIR

Hawera Star, Volume LI, 28 May 1932, Page 14

QUEER CARGOES IN THE AIR

‘ «rYNE often hears people talking of the romance of modern industry as though it was something vague, intangible. Well, all I can say is that if you want the real thing—the authentic, genuine article—l can show it to you here and now, because the building we’re standing in at the moment illustrates, more probably than any other, how romance and an element of the dramatic now actually mingle with everyday commercial progress. ”

These words, says Mr Harry Harper, in a recent article, were those of one of the most experienced officials. at the London airport—a man who has been associated since its inception with this wondereful business of aerial transport. ‘‘'‘The other day, just as an example,’’ said the official, “the Indian air-mail was on the point of departure when a last-minute parcel was rushed down from the West End by special messenger. And what do you think the consignment note showed that it contained? Just a' false beard. 'That, and nothing else; and the explanation was quite simple. An amateur theatrical performance had been arranged in India, and for the ‘make-up’ of one of the actors taking part a special type of false beard was essential. The lack of this, however, had not been discovered until it was too late to obtain one I from London in the ordinary way. But ’ by air-mail that beard was in India in a week, and the situation was saved. “On the same machine that day, as it happened, there was another picturesque cargo—a box of beautiful and costly toys, bought in London for the children of an Indian Kajah, and going out by air not only to save time, but to minimise any risk of damage while in transit. Air-borne goods receive such careful handling and attention that the airway is ideal for fragile articles, and for this reason electrical and other delicate apparatus, !and such things as valuable pictures, are now consigned regularly by air. “And here’s another little story that I a recent record shows. Not long ago an engineering plant, located at a point far out along one of the Empire airlines, was brought to a standstill by the failure of a small but vital part which could only bo obtained from a special source in England. To have got it out by ordinary means might have entailed weeks of delay; but a cable to the firm in England telling them to invoke at once the assistance of aerial transport, meant that the part required was acually delivered, thou- '

False Beards to Lions and Tigers

■ sands of miles away, in not more than ■ eight days.” Mr Harper continues: “Air transport, one is reminded, not only quickens the movement of ordinary mer- ■ cliandise; it creates new traffic of its own. And here is an example of that. i Grown at various points along Empire routes are rapidly-ripening tropical fruits which hitherto, owing to the time taken by ordinary transport, have never reached the London markets in a suitable condition. Now, however, if a consignment is placed in one of the home-coming mail-planes, the fruit is actually in the London shops a few days later, in a prime condition for eating. In many other wajns, also, is the air-mail proving a boon to industries, far distant, whose territories it serves. Take, for example, the coffee planters of Kenya; they now send samples of their crops to London by air in a matter of days as compared with weeks by surface travel. And samples of the Egyptian coffee crops are also coming regularly to London by air. “It is, of course, the sheer speed of the airway which brings loads in an ever-growing volume; and how such loads have increased I myself can testify. 'Twelve years ago, when I used to go out to Hounslow —then the London air-port—to watch one of the | small pioneer aircraft aseend on its ■flight to Paris, half-a-dozen small parcels represented a typical daily load. And now at busy periods nearly twenty tons of urgent freight may air-borne in and out of Groydon in a single day; while an examination of the records shows that in a recent period of nine months the big machines of Imperial Airways carried to and fro above the 'Channel more than COO tons of mails and freight. ■“How speed attracks loads,” remarked Mr Harpcr-’s guide, ‘‘is illustrated by the department which now deals with the transport of livestock by air. Take, for example, our frequent consignments of day-old chicks. Here ith airway can do something impossible by any other means, because a special crate of chicks, if put on an outwardUo'und plane here eariv in the morning, will be delivered at some point far across Europe that same evening.”

Lions, tigers, crocodiles and a bear, to say nothing of monkeys and other smaller animals, have been carried across the Channel in aeroplanes, w r ith no greater difficulty, it is stated, than that experienced by other means of * transport.