GOODWILL FLIGHT BEGUN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 31 December 1937, Page 7

GOODWILL FLIGHT BEGUN

AT CAPITAL CITY AN ENTHUSIASTIC RECEPTION EVERY VANTAGE POINT OCCUPIED WELLINGTON, This Day. The Centaurus arrived over Wellington at 9.55 a.m. She made a wide sweep over Island Bay and Lyall Bay, and after circling over the town came down to the water oil Aotea quay at 10 o’clock precisely. It was a graceful advent. The plane was met with the syrens ,of shipping about the wharves and the enthusiastic waving and cheers of the crowds. It was a lovely summer morning with a haze high in the sky, the sun blazing down and a light northerly blowing, hardly noticeable except on the heights. Every vantage point on the roofs of the city buildings showed by the occupants that the significance of the occasion was not lost on the people of Wellington. The flying boat made a perfect landing. The crowd down at Aotea Quay was silent as the boat, swaying slightly at under 200 feet, banked for the last swoop. . Power lines and poles foreshortened by the angle appeared likely to rip the hull, but the boat dropped gently before flattening out after a doiible circle of the city. A variety of power craft and row boats bounced in the jobble caused by the churning wake of the flying-boat as she picked up her moorings near the floating dock, and the thousands lining Aotea Quay had a grandstand view. Steamers, trains and motorcars used whatever means of signalling they had, but the crowd, busy drinking "in the spectacle, forgot to applaud j until the actual landing, and then it 1 was restrained clapping. When the ship was safely moored a few minutes after 10 o’clock, Captain Burgess and the crew were taken to the dock and then to the reception by the Wellington Harbour Board, and at noon there was a civic reception.

DESCRIPTION OF FLIGHT At five o’clock this morning when the guests were called out of bed at Auckland the sky was gray and the wind fresh, but no more, and at 7 o’clock to the second the outer port motor was started up. Then the outer motor on the other wing, and the boat was jockeyed into the wind and past the mooring buoy. The early morning car ferry running from Devor.port steamed across and the Centaurus was swung in a wide circle. Then it taxied well up the harbour and turned into the wind for the take-off that no one among the passengers knew about except that the foaming water dropped below the windows. That was at 7.17 o’clock. Height was gained astonishingly quickly. The Centaurus and all her sister ships can climb at a thousand fee* a minute from sea level.

A SALUTE DEFERRED Somewhere at sea approaching Auckland was the Mataroa with Mrs Burgess and child on board, and a wide circle was made out to sea in gaining height, but the Mataroa was under a grey mist, and the salute which Captain Burgess would have paid was deferred till Mrs Burgess and child arrive in Wellington by air this afternoon. For the take-off the passengers were seated, but as soon as the ship was in the air anyone walked anywhere. Walking on these ships really means walking, and promenade cabin means promenade cabin. ITINERARY OF TOUR Saturday will be spent ir Wellington. Sunday will be a free day, and on Monday morning at 7 o’clock the Centaurus will leave for Lyttelton, making a detour over the Marlborough Sounds, Blenheim, and Nelson. Members of the Ministry who are in Wellington and the South Island have been invited to join the Centaurus for a flight on one or more stages of the New Zealand tour. The Hon. W. Nash, the Hon. R. Semple, and the Hon. F. Jones will travel from Wellington to Lyttelton in her. Lyttelton will be reached at about 10.30 a.m. On 4th January the flyingboat will go to Dunedin, there at 10 o’clock, and next day will take off at 8 a.m. to return to Auckland, making a. call at Wellington between 12.30 and 2 p.m. The flight north from Wellington to Auckland, via Hastings, Napier, Gisborne, and Tauranga is estimated to occupy four hours at easy cruising speed. Deviations are being made, in order to travel over as many towns as possible. POWER AND BEAUTY FACTS ABOUT THE CENTAURUS PROOF IN ESTABLISHED PERFORMANCES THE EMPIRE BOAT The Centaurus is by a very wide margin the largest aircraft to visit Wellington but, because of the beauty of line and proportion the flying-boat not appear to be as large as it is •Trorn a distance of two hundred yards or so, which may be as near as Captain

But the real proof of the Empire boats is not in engineering figures and technical calculations, but in such performances as have been established on routes operated regularly from England to the Mediterranean. Africa, and India, the North Atlantic surveys, and the fine flight made by Captain Burgess in the Centaurus from Southampton to New Zealand. The beauty of the Empire boat in the air is in part aimed at for the sake of appearance, but the lines of beauty and speed, to a world that thinks a deal of streamlining, hap-

CENTAURUS LEAVES FOR WELLINGTON IN CLOUDY WEATHER CONDITIONS FIRST HOP OF SOUTHERN TOUR (By Telegraph—Press Association) AUCKLAND, This Day. The Imperial Airways flying-boat Centaurus left at 7.15 a.m. on her flight to Wellington in cloudy and overcast weather with a wind from the north-east. The machine taxied from its moorings at Mechanics’ Bay to mid-harbour, circled on the water two or three times, and rose gracefully in the direction of Devonport. It circled over the harbour and disappeared in a southerly direction at 7.25 a.m. OVER PALMERSTON NORTH PALMERSTON NORTH, This Day. The Centaurus made a striking picture in the brilliant sunshine when she traversed the city this morning southwardbound. The craft approached from the north-east over Milson Aerodrome and after circling the square at a low altitude enabling the crowds on the roofs and in the streets to obtain an excelled view, headed south for Wellington.

Burgess will consider it prudent to moor his ship to the shore. It is only when there is a standard of comparison, a man walking her wing, or busy with the mooring lines at the bow, that the immense size of these Empire fly-ing-boats is appreciated. Measurements and facts are cold, but a yardstick is a yardstick. Some of the main facts and dimensions of these Imperial Airways machines are these:

There are 28 Empire boats in the Imperial Airways fleet of flying-boats, and 14 Ensign airliners are building: the Ensign is a landplane comparable in size and performance to the Empire boat.

The Empire boats cost approximately £54,000 each.

The wing spread is 114 feet and the hull length 88 feet.

There are four “moderately supercharged” Pegasus Xc engines, built by the Bristol Company, each of 740 rated horse-power, but giving a normal maximum power of 790 h.p. at 2600 r.p.m. at 5500 feet and 910 h.pi for take-off. 0

The maximum speed at 5500 feet is something over 200 m.p.h., but cruising speed does not normally exceed 165 m.p.h. Minimum flying speed is 73 m.p.h.

Variable pitch propellers are fitted and with coarse pitch the rate of climb is almost one thousand feet a minute. The “ceiling" with full load is about 20,000 feet—that is, the four engines and the fine wing and full design lift 18 tons almost four miles in the air, but such heights are not flown in present commercial practice.

SURVEY FLIGHT RANGE The empty weight of the standard Empire boat is 24.0001 b, the balance to loaded weight being made up of payload and crew 82001 b, or 3.66 tons, fuel, and oil. Normally, the tanks will hold 650 gallons, or nearly tons, of petrol, and this tankage gives an operating range, with 24 seats occupied and mail and freight space filled, of 760 miles; but the Centaurus, with the seating accommodation reduced to 15, has seven fuel tanks, with a total capacity of 2040 gallons and a correspondingly greatly increased range as a survey ship. Actually the tanks have not been filled to capacity since leaving England, and for the Tasman flight they were only about three-fifths full, with 1400 gallons, and when the machine landed at Auckland there was still a margin of 450 gallons, enough to have enabled the Wellington trip to have been made without refuelling. High wing loading is essentially a development of modern aircraft, making for speed, economy, and better passenger comfort. The wing loading of the Empire boats is 271 b per square foot.

RADIO EQUIPMENT The radio installation is very complete. Marconi equipment is installed, with a retractable loop aerial and di-rection-finder devices. The short and medium wave telegraphy transmitter works on wave-lengths of 16.9 to 75 metres and 600 to 1100 metres and the telephony transmitter on the medium wave band. “George,” the Sperry automatic pilot, is fitted in all Empire class boats, and does most of the flying on long' stages without any human aid, and an emergency transmitter driven by its own small petrol motor ensures radio connection with surface craft or shore stations in the extremely unlikely case of the flying-boat being forced down by the failure of three engines, for these machines will fly and maintain safe height on any two of the four motors.

Searchlights are built in to assist alighting, one in the nose for taxi-ing on the water and the other on the port wing.

In. spite of the »dimensions of the Empire boats and their comparatively small displacement of 18 tons, they are extremely rugged in construction, due mainly to the use of the lightweight aluminium alloys produced in recent years to meet the exacting requirements of aircraft engineers. So strong is the construction, in an alloy far lighter than steel, that the tensile strength in the centre of the hull is 800 tons.

pily coincide, and the Empire boat in the air is very beautiful indeed. A COMPARISON The following table giving the principal dimensions and other data of the Centaurus and the Clipper is of interest: — Centaurus. Clipper. Wing spread 127 ft 118 ft Length hull 88ft 69ft Power 4 Pegasus 4 Hornets each 740 each 800 h.p. h.p. Weight loaded 18 tons. 17 tons. Top speed 200 m.p.h. 190 m.p.h. Cruising speed .... 150-160 150-160 m.p.h. m.p.h. COOK STRAIT AIRWAYS This afternoon Messrs H. C. Cock, E. H. Thomson, Dr Jamieson, Captain Bolt and Messrs Temple and Jones, of Cook Strait Airways flew to Wellington for an invitation flight in Imperial Airways flying boat Centaurus.