BRITISH AVIATION

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVIII, Issue 238, 5 September 1928, Page 7

BRITISH AVIATION

INTERESTING DEVELOPMENT.

ENDURANCE EXPERIMENTS

CHALLENGE TO GERMANY,

(United Press Association —By Electric 'Uelegraph-—-Copyright.) (British Official "Wireless.)

Received September 5, 10.45 a.m. RUGBY, Sept. 4,

Another interesting development in British aviation is shortly expected. Tho assembly stage is now being reached in an attempt to evolve British aircraft capable of remaining in tho air for three days and three nights continuously, and by the end of this month preliminary light tests may be made. The ■ machine, which is a FaireyNapier monoplane, is being fitted with the latest Napier Lion engine and represents a departure from tho general British practice in that the monoplane form, instead of the biplane, lias been chosen.

Tho present endurance record, which is held by Germany, was set up in July, when Herr Risticz and Herr Zimmerman, in a Junker’s monoplane, remained in tho air for 65J hours.

While in a sense the British experiment is a challenge to the foreign endurance records, it is understood that tho main purpose of the Air Ministry is to further research upon long endurance, which may have a great practical - value in view of the scattered strategic bases of tho Empire.

FRENCH CONDITIONS.

NUMEROUS FATALITIES,

INSUFFICIENT UPKEEP,

(Australian Press Association.) PARIS, Sept. 3

The tragedy in which M. Bokanowski, French Minister of Commerce, and four others lost their lives draws from the entire Press the. suggestion that French aviation is yielding an excessive numbers of fatalities. The universal opinion in Franco is that something is seriously wrong with military and civil aviation.

Foreign experts and French airmen put their finger on tho immediate cause, and point out +hat most of tire military machines are out of date, while the commercial machines are suffering from an excess of work and insufficient upkeep. _ It is suggested that in both cases pilots dare not protest, though they know that their machines are unsafe, otherwise they would be blackmarked.

The primary reason in both cases is lack of money. The air service is allegedly starved and tho subsidies granted commercial companies are beggarly.

M. Bokanowski and k four others were burnt to death when an aeroplane in which they were flying overturned and crashed from a height of 1600 feet.