Building Britain's New Air Huh

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 194, 18 August 1936, Page 2

Building Britain's New Air Huh

A new British, air hub was in the making on July 4 while mechanics tuned up the first flying-boat of a promised Atlantic fleet (says the New York Times). The giant four-motored 'plane, prototype of the airliner with which Britain is to face the Atlantic voyage, made its first appearance on the slipway at Eochester this week. Others are nearing completion. The actual work of making Langstone Harbour a combined land and marine base for Empire and transatlantic routes is expected to begin in another month. By this step, the United Kingdom expects to advance a programme of civil aviation aimed at putting the Empire on top of the flying world.

It is a forward step towards the day, not long distant, when a regular schedule of transatlantic aeroplane transport will be an actuality. Early next year, it is being predicted, a service to tihe United States will be under way, with two American and two British flying-boats arriving and departing weekly. The Portsmouth Town Council has already approved the project of the airport, to be the largest of its kind in the world and to cost close to £1,200,000. Government financial assistance is virtually assured, some of it at least from the proposed new Air Navigation Bill with its provision for a 50 per cent, increase in air subsidies to £1,500,000 yearly. For Portsmouth, the new airport would mean distinction as the air hub of the world. Langstone Harbour, which has Portsmouth Harbour to the west and Chichester Harbour to the east, would become a large inland lake. Several hundred acres of ground would be prepared for the handling of land aeroplanes.

As far as Britain’s contribution to transatlantic air travel is concerned, the chief interest now centres in the flying-boats which, stripped to bare essentials, are to make reconnoitring flights before long. Orders to proceed with the flights are expected soon. Progress on the pick-a-back aeroplane, a combination in which a “mother” aeroplane will carry on its back a smaller long-range seaplane for “launching” at high altitude, is more secret. Britain’s first efforts towards transatlantic service aro expected to be directed at Bermuda via the Canary Islands, with the North Atlantic crossing to be attempted later.