COMMERCIAL FLYING

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 10640, 13 July 1920, Page 7

COMMERCIAL FLYING

LOSS TO NEW ZEALAND. SHIPPING STRIKE UPSETS ENTERPRISE. A joy-riding partnership _ has 'been entered into .at Geelong, Victoria, between two New Zealanders, ©xMAeutenant Charles Daniel Pratt (R.A.F.) and Mr Percival Justin Pratt, assisted by Mr Leslie Clarke—also ex-R.A.X*, (states the Australian journal “Sea, Land, and Air"). Four machines are to bo employed in the venture, and were purchased in Egypt last year by Mr C. D. Pratt from the Royal Air Force Disposal Board at Heliopolis, namely: Two 13.H.-6’s (fitted with 90 h.p. R.A.F. engines) j an Avro, type 504 K. (100 h.p. Monosoupape), and a Sopwith Pup (80 h.p. Clerget). Intended for commercial flying in Wellington (New Zealand), they were shipped from Alexandria in November last aboard the Cooee, but on nearing Australia it wae decided, in view of the New Zealand shipping strike, to abandon the original project and start operations in Victoria, One' of the D.H.-6’s landed at Port Melbourne was railed to Geelong and. assembled at Belmont Common. No hangar accommodation is provided, and on wet nights the ’bus takes cover beneath a friendly railway bridge close to the Common. .It has been in constant use since January, and its owners, who paid a recent visit to “Sea, Land, and Air” in Sydney, state that during the past four months they have carried approximately' 1000 passengers and conducted commercial flights over an area extending east to Melbourne and north to Ballarat.