GREAT AIR SERVICE

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 103, 1 April 1929, Page 7

GREAT AIR SERVICE

BRITAIN TO INDIA. ADVANCE IN CIVIL AVIATION. BIG SAVING OF TIME. (United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright). (British Official Wireless). Received April 1, 11.5 a.m. RUGBY, March 31? Tlie longest air service in the world, and the biggest 6tep yet taken by British civil aviation, was inaugurated to-day with the opening of the Britain to India weekly mail and passenger service. The journey from Croydon to Karachi will take seven days, compared with the 16 days required even with the fastest combination of boat and train on the ordinary route. The total length of the air line is 5000 miles. From London to Basle, Switzerland, the mail is bourne in a big three-engined Armstrong-Siddeley Argosy air liner. From Basle it is carried by the mail train to Genoa. At Genoa it goes aboard an all-metal Calcutta air boat, which flies with it to Alexandria. Here it is transferred to a 1500 liorse-power de Haviland Hercules aeroplane which, by stages, bears it by way of Bagdad and Basra down the Persian Gulf to Karachi. _ - To organise this new airway special aeroplanes and flying boats have been designed and built. Harbours for marine aircraft and landing places for aeroplanes have been _ surveyed and established, and a chain of wireless and meteorological stations have been installed. . The aircraft will be in wireless touch with inter-communicating ground stations throughout the whole journey by means of the latest Marconi apparatus. The fare from London to Karachi will be £l3O, including hotels and meals; from London to Bagdad £9O, and from London to Egypt £BB. The surcharge on air mail ietters is only 6d. SIR SAMUEL HOARE A PASSENGER. (Australian Press Association. —United Service.) LONDON, March 30. The Argosy, the first air mail liner for India, left Croydon this morning. Sir Samuel Hoare, Minister of Air, was a passenger, and on arirval at Le Bourget Sir Samuel -was greeted by a representative of the French Air Ministry. The Argosy reached Basle at 6.45 o’clock in the evening.