PACIFIC SERVICE

Hokitika Guardian, 12 January 1935, Page 6

PACIFIC SERVICE

SAN. FRANCISCO TO CHINA

POSSIBLE EVENTUAL LINKS

HONOLULU, Jin. 9. . The latest move by American interests in establishing a transpacific airnvifj :u ia 1 .passenger service, which eventiidly will he linked with Australia and N<nv Zealand, bringing the tatter Dominion within a we<‘k of America, was made this week, when .Mr Clarence 11. Sehildhauer, an expert of the powerful Pan ,American Airways, arrived in Hawaii to choose a local terminus for the proposed extension of his ■company’s services into the Pacific. After a series of conferences with the United States Army and Navy experts and the Hawaiian Inter-Island Airways iXIr Sehildhauer announced that he has chosen Kaneohe Bay, a 30-minute drive from Honolulu, on the north-east side of Oahu, as the site for; the terminus. “Kaneohe Bay offers unobstructed takeoffs into the prevailing winds and, in addition, supplies a sufficient stretch of sheltered water at several angles.” he said. ‘-The super-Clipper , a mphibans, which wo will use, demand, between a mile and a half and two miles’ run for the most ideal conditions. Th e y draw between six and seven feet of water.

“Locating the terminus in Kaneohe Bay will save 45 minutes in the flight from the United States mainland to Hawaii on the time taken if the terminus were on the south side of the island nearer Honolulu. The company will convert Kaneohe Bay into .a modern airport. Like all our company’s ‘ports,’ there will be complete radio and meteorological stations, and these in turn, will be linked with all ou r other stations on the mainland and the ones which we will establish in turn at 'the stops to the Orient. The radio s-'tion will have direction-find-ing beam instruments to guide the aeroplanes, which all carry radio-com-passes. These are essential in the control of transocean aeroplanes. “While my visit is to study the route purely from ,a technical point iof view, the first of our Super-Clip-pers is undergoing tests in Florida waters. In her first flight, with a payload of eight tons, she took off in 25s and climbed to 16,000 ft., and made the top speed of 192 miles .an hour, ithus breaking every transport seaplane record for altitude, speed, distance and load. More than 2,000,000 dollars of private capital are involved in The development and construction of this ‘Clipper’ and her unlaunched five sisters. Each will carry 32 passengers aud one ton of mail. “Special crews of ‘sea-air’ pilots have been ch°sen for these tests, which, in turn, will be a scries of training flights for the men. Long flights will be made to sea from Florida to acquaint the crews with specialised sea navigation, radio-direction finding, and other overwater problems. “The first transpacific test flight will be made early this vea l ’. The r - oute will be: San Francisco to Honolulu,

e 1323 miles; Midway to Wake Island, e 1191 miles; Wake to Guam, 1536 miles; n' Guam to Manila, 1728 miles ; and 3. i Manila to Canton, 727 miles. We will o .‘he content with 60 hours for the whole ,t flight at the st a irt, althought the d schedule can be speeded up. This fast 0 ' route to the rich Orient markets will y give American manufacturers two or j three days’ advantage over th c i r Euro.j. peaii rivals, who use the British, Dutch and French routes to the Orient, via S . India.” Mr Schildhauer left Honolulu to- , day for Midway Island, where he will s survey a terminus. Upon return to ■> Honolulu ■ he will examine all the ’ islands within the Hawaiian group to R examine the possibilities of bad weather r “ports” for the aeroplanes. He is rea | garded as the leading expert of his y company. In 1931 lie was pilot and -'navigator of the huge German-built a DO-X, which successfully flew the AtI lantic from Switzerland to Brazil and back across the Atlantic to Germany. s He was formerly a lieutenant in the - United States Navy. A week before Mr Schildhauer r j reached Hawaii, Mr Stanley Kennedy, ( president of Hawaiian Inter-Island Airk ways, returned to Honolulu from a series of conferences in America with ! Ran American officials. It is hoped that I the 'lnter-Island interests * will merge with Pan American in the operation of the transpacific route. Inter-Island Airways are backed by wealthy Hawaiian interests and it is their belief that 1 Hawaii should own a. controlling in--1 terest in any air mail service which 5 links the islands with the United States

mainland. j In the immediate future, by using j the mail' liners out of Auckland, New I Zealand will be brought within 10 days of America, and, when the transpacific | air service is branched to Australia and New Zealand, via Fiji and Samoa, the time will be reduced to a few days. This latter point,■ however, is* looking a few years into the future. But eventually, Pan American experts agree, an American-Australian-New Zealand service must come. How soon it will be depends entirely on the interest displayed by New Zealand and Australia.