EMPIRE PORTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 227, 23 August 1935, Page 16

EMPIRE PORTS

SEAPLANE LINK SCHEME. PROPOSED ATLANTIC SERVICE. Prominent members of the shipping, commercial, and banking worlds are considering an ambitious scheme to link the principal ports of the Empire and America by fast seaplane services for passengers and mails (says a London report). The plans are a development of a project originally proposed by the late Sir Sefton Brancker, Director of Civil Aviation, l>efore he met his deatli in the RlOl disaster five years ago. Even more definite is the action to make Liverpool the English terminus of a new trans-Atlantic air passenger service. As to the Empire scheme, it is hoped by using the latest types of seaplanes equipped with Diesel engines, and flying day and night, to reach Capetown and Buenos Aires in two and a half to three days. Unaided by any financial subsidy, this service could i>e operated profitably only by “landing” and taking-off in harbours. Explaining some aspects of the proposal, Mrs IT. B. Tate, M.P., one of the promoters, said :

“The seaplanes would have a workj ing arrangement with the shipping j companies for hooking passengers and freight, and for meterorological services. Our radio services are in existence already. “The machines which we contemplate using at the moment will fi.y at 188 to 190 miles an hour, and their range at full load will be 1200 to 1500 miles. They will carry crews of five, working in relays, and between 30 and 40 passengers, with sleeping accommodation for 20. We propose to operate a service to New York via the Azores to Bermuda. By means of the seaplanes we can bring Fort Darwin within four and n half days of Southampton. We shall operate short services between Cherbourg, Copenhagen, Lisbon and Gibraltar. From Gibraltar machines will fly via Suez to India, Ceylon, and Singapore.” Meanwhile, tho Liverpool Corporation has decided to sell to the British International Aircraft Distributing Co.v., Ltd., a site on the Speke estate, which surrounds the city’s aerodrome, and the contract stipulates that an aircraft factory, to cost not less than £65,000, must be erected there within twelve months. The site of the proposed factory, from which five or six machines will be turned out each week, is on the edge of the airport, on the river front, and tlie corporation has agreed to give the company the use of tire municipal aerodrome for testing machines built or repaired in the factory. Work is expected to bo provided eventually for several hundred men. The British International Aircraft Distributing Coy., Ltd., is associated with the Uelianca Aircraft Corporation of America, and lias been formed with a capital of £400,000. The new factorv is expected to cost about £90,000. “FINEST IN ENGLAND.” That there is more behind this move than meets the eye is indicated by the fact that the Bellanca Aircraft Corporation of America is planning to make its first trans-Atlantic passenger flight at tho end of August, and hopes to establish a regular service. One of the firm’s machines will fly from Floyd Bennett Field, New York, to Liverpool, and will be piloted by Clive Pangboru, who flew the Atlantic in July, 1931. The ’plane is capable of 'carrying 18 passengers, and attempts will be made to do the journey in 15 hours.

Regarding the choice of Liverpool for the operations, Dir Howard Kroniek, of the Bellanca Aircraft Corporation of America, who came to England to conduct the negotiations for the formation of the new company, said: “I consider Speke aerodrome to be the finest in England. Britain is very much nirminded, and round the Manchester district in particular arc to be found the type of men with the engineering mind, and with a keen desire to learn the aircraft industry, which is another reason why Speke has been selected as a specially suitable point for the construction of the new factory for turning out seaplanes and amphibian machines.” An extensive scheme of improvements at the Speke aerodrome is now in progress, including the provision of control buildings, hangars, wireless beacons, and a system of niglit floodlighting. During the last three years the number of landings at this airport lias increased sevenfold. There are at present thirty commercial lines of aircraft arriving and departing from the airport daily, giving direct connection to and from Amsterdam. Belfast, Birmingham. Blackpool, Brighton, Bristol, Carlisle, Glasgow', Hull, tlie Isle of Man, London, Manchester, Southampton, and Portsmouth. These direct services make connection with the main Continental air routes. Fourteen aeroplanes are now leaving the Spoke airport each day for the Isle of Man. As to the suggested Atlantic service, any future operations must depend upon the performance of experimental types of ’planes. Now that seadromes have been ruled to be too costly, if not utterly impracticable, a machine that can flv non-stop across tlie ocean, possibly an amphibian, will be essential. The stormy conditions that obtain along the route during most of tho year will call for particularly strong body construction and powerful engines.