AVIATION NOTES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 254, 24 September 1935, Page 3

AVIATION NOTES

SOUTH ATLANTIC AIR MAIL SERVICE. (By “Aileron.”) Two names which have figured in the news during the past two years are Westfalen and Schwa ben I and. They aro tho names of tho two depot ships employed by the well-known German airline company, Hansa Luftbelt, or Deutcho Luft Hansa., on their mail service across tho South Atlantic Ocean from West Africa to Brazil. This branch of their now extensive service has proved a great success, about 30,000 letters being carried on each journey. Since its inauguration some two years ago two Hornier 10-ton Super-Wal flying boats. Monsoon and Typhoon, have been used for the service. These aircraft were built in the same factory as the famed DO-X. and are of allmetal construction. To the conventional hull is fitted a single wiim upon which is a nacelle containing two motors in tandem, each driving a propeller at one end of the nacelle. This type is much used in Germany.

The German mail for South America is collected in Berlin and is flown via Stuttgart (where it is augmented by other European mail) to Seville in Spain. The machine used on this section is a Hcinkel HE-70. The mail is then transferred to a Junkers Ju. 52-3 m. transport, in which it is taken to Bathurst (Gambia), via las Palmas or Cape Juby. At Bathurst it is put aboard one of the Dornier-Wal’s awaiting it on the deck of the depot-ship Sehwaberland which steams out to sea. About 100 miles from the African shore tho flying boat- is catapulted into the air and continues on its non-stop flight to Natal (Brazil), a distance depending upon the actual position of the vessel, but always between 1500 and 1800 miles’. When the mail reaches Natal it is flown to Buenos Aires by a landplane belonging to Syndicate Con<lor Limitada, a company subsidised bjD.L.H.

The European mail from South America is taken overland by S.C.L. to Natal where it is transferred to the D.L.H. flying-boat which carries it to the small island of Fernando Norliona, and the machine alights on a trailing apron at the stern of the Westfalen aboard which it is lifted by means of a folding crane. A few hours later the plane is catapulted off when the ship is out at sea and proceeds non-stop to Bathurst, 1500 miles awav. The Junkers plane conveys the mail to Larache, where it is met bv the Heinkel machine, which has just previously delivered the American mail at Seville, and is carried on to Berlin. The distance from Berlin to Buenos Aires is approximately 0200 miles and may be traversed in four days. So far, passengers have not been carried as the service was designed primarily for the rapid transportation of mails. However, D.L.H. have plans in hand for the operation of a passenger service in conjunction with a newlyformed Zeppelin syndicate which will use the Graf Zeppelin and the LZ 129 when it is completed during the summer months. By then, it is hoped passengers will avail themselves of this rapid mode of transport as the fare will be little higher than that by rail and steamer.