AIR SERVICE TENDERS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXVI, Issue 111, 23 April 1936, Page 9

AIR SERVICE TENDERS

Plane-to-Shore Comfort FLEET OF MOTOR-BOATS (From Our Special Correspondent.) (By Air Mail.) LONDON, March 2b. Passengers to England on the new Empire flying boats which are shortly to be put on Imperial Airways’ section of the Australia-England route, will have a fleet of special motor boats at their service when they arrive. Fifty smart and speedy motor boats, specially designed as air service tenders, have just been ordered for the new Empire Air Base to be built at Portsmouth, from where flying boats will operate on air routes to Australia, India and Africa, as well as the Atlantic Some of the boats will also be required lor bases in Ireland, Newfoundland and Egypt. So far only a lew are in use by Imperial Airways, and these are in the Mediterranean, where flying boats operate the Brindisi-Athens-Alexandria stage of the routes. “We have developed a boat suitable tor work with the Imperial Airways flying boat fleet which will take op to 30 people,” said one of Imperial Airways directors. “Nicely decorated cabins will be built in them and they will be weatherproof. Each boat will have two 100 h.p engines, and l.l:ey will be able to operate between He flying boats and the landing stage , ashore at 26 knots an hour.”