THE SOUTHERN FLIGHT.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVIII, Issue 18334, 17 February 1920, Page 4

THE SOUTHERN FLIGHT.

Pionbeb flying is so much the order of the day throughout the -world, especially among British aviators, that it is a very great pleasure to welcome a New Zealand venture of the kind, and to wish God-speed to the distinguished pilot upon whom its success depends. This morning the Canterbury Aviation Company will dispatch an aeroplane on ■what "will be the first extensive crosscountry flight yet attempted in NewZealand, and although the journey from Christchurch to Invercargill will be un-* dertaken by comparatively easy stages, as an educative rather than a recordbreaking flight, the progress of the machine will be followed with very keen interest throughout the'Dominion, and particularly by southern communities, between -whom a new sense of neighbourliness will be engendered by this latest Imperial air route. Flying in New Zealand has emerged from the infant stage, thanks to the men. who grouped themselves together in Christchurch io establish a South Island flying school for the training of cadets for the Allied air force. The history of the Canterbury Aviation Company is really the history of aviation in New Zealand, as far as land machines are concerned, Bince the Kohimarama School, - near Auckland, has confined its operations to seaplanes. The Canterbury company was started on August 22, 1916, although more than a month earlier an order for the first two biplanes had been placed by the Hon«H. F. Wigram, who had consistently though unavailingly urged the establishment of Government schools as the nucleus of an aviation corps for national defence. The success of the company in the training of Air Force cadets is too -well known to call for comment. New activities have now to be faced, and the southern tour will bring into prominence an important phase of commercial aviation. The carriage of • ah edition of the "Lyttelton Slimes" is only one indication of the

work-a-day uses of the aeroplane, and there oan he no doubt that in a very few. years flying will have taken its place as the most favoured and, one has reason to add, the safest means of transport. The opinion is often expressed that New Zealand iB too 6mall to support a commercial air fleet at present, yet it is in countries sparsely populated and not yet fully developed that aviation has the most promise, since it calls for little expenditure in the provision of permanent way. In a very recent article on " Aviation in British Dominions," Mr T. 0. M. Sopwith makes the point that aviation will prove of the least utility where competitive forms of transport already exist in a well organised and extensive system. He says that in thousands.of cases in the overseas dominions rapid communication between two relatively email centres is desirable, but the traffic does not justify the enormous outlay required for a railway, which might have to traverse a mountain range. The force of this argument cannot fail to appeal to New Zealanders, and the southern flight of Captain Dickson should have a distinct value in preparing the public for the rapid realisation of the flying era.