AVIATION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17982, 26 December 1918, Page 4

AVIATION.

INTERNATIONAL AIR BOARD.

BRITAIN'S PROPOSAL.

NEW TREMENDOUS INDUSTRY IN SIGHT. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received Decemoer 26, 6 pJ»4 LONDON, December 2L . Lord Weir, President of the Air Council, speaking at Manchester, said the best interests of civilisation would not be served by keeping civil aviation as a Government monopoly. The Government had drafted a scheme for an International Air Board/ which would be submitted to tho Allies. If approved, an International Air Conferensce would be held in a few months to (organise international Within five years the navigation of an aeroplane in bad weather ought to be as easy assteering a ship in similar circumstances." Already Britain had aeroplanes able to climb ten thousand feet, travel a hundred miles an hour, make a non-stop journey of 1200 miles, alight on the sea and rise again with a full load. A new tremendous industry was about to be created out of the Royal Air Force which, trained and developed in war, will put its lessons in practice for the purposes of peace and civilisation. The air force, which comprised 285 officers and 1855 men in August, 1914, now numbered 30,000 officers, 200,000 men and 30,000 women and boys. The chief problems for the immediate future were severe navigational training, the creation of an energetic meteorological service, the adoption of improved wireless telegraphy and telephone, and the adoption of a iirstdass system of day and night landing places and aerodromes. These things would cost a lot of money, but would consummate and justify the work of the men who had died.

HUGE AIRCRAFT

Reutar'i Telegrams.

LONDON, December 21

"The Times'' correspondent writes that a British airship recently cruised for sixty-one hours without a stop. It is no longer a secret that the Germans owed their escape at Jutland to Zeppelins, which also enabled tho flotilla bombarding Scarborough to escape.

An airship is already planned with a capacity of ten million cubic feet, or four times as large as the biggest Zeppelin.

EXPEDITION TO NORTH POLE. Australian andN.Z. Cabl« Association. NEW YORK, December 23. The New York Aero Club announced to-night that an expedition to the North Pole would probably be made next June by aeroplane. It is proposed that the expedition shall bo headed by Rear-Admiral Robert Peary and Captain Bartlett.

AMERICAN AVIATRIX.' TO FLY FROM EUROPE TO AMERICA. , w Beuter, via America. LONDON, December 21. Katherine Stinson, an American aviatrix, has announced that she will fly from Europe to America. She istha first of her sex to fly over London. She accomplished the feat on Friday.

GERMAN BED FOR SUPREMACY.

ENORMOUS PREPARATIONS.. (Received December 25, 6.5 p.m.) LONDON, December 22.

The Copenhagen correspondent of the "Daily Express" states that Germany is making" enormous secret preparations to secure air mastery after tbe war. War factories throughout tho country are being converted into aircraft factories. Gigantic hangars and aerodromes are being inaugurated in all the principal towns. The scheme provides for some circuits centring in Berlin and expanding later foreign services to the principal capitals, even New York. Gigantic aeroplanes are being designed, the largest costing nearly £IOO,OOO. Prominent German business men now are saying that Germany's future lies in the air.