AUSTRALIAN ENTERPRISE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18324, 15 August 1921, Page 5

AUSTRALIAN ENTERPRISE

FIRST SEAPLANE LAUNCHED. A SUCCESSFUL FLIGHT. Fr««s Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, August 12. Mrs Hughes launched the first seaplane for tho Australian Naval Aircraft Department at Fairey Aviation Works, Hamble, Southampton. Mr Hughes was not present. General Seely presided, tho company including Generals Branckner and Sykes, representatives of the Air Forces. General Seely, in proposing success to the commonwealth, eulogised Mr Hughes’s farsightedness in instituting a Commonwealth Air Force, also the services which he had rendered to the Imperial Conference. Mr Hughes and the other dominion Prime Ministers had stood at Mr Lloyd George’s right hand in the recent critical period. General Seely hazarded the conjecture that if there Had been no Imperial Conference there would have been no settlement of the Irish question. The spectacle of the dominions participating as sister States in an Imperial crisis was an invaluable object-lesson which appealed to Irish leaders.

Mr J. M. Hunter (Agent-General for Queensland) commented on the Government’s foresight in organising seaplanes, while the other dominions were only thinking about the matter. Six seaplanes would be ready by September, each capable of carrying three people beside? bombs, machine guns, ammunition, and wireless. Their speed would be 110 miles an hour, and they would be fitted with Rolls-Royce engines. After Mrs Hughes had launched the plane, it successfully flew over Southampton, carrying four persons, including General Seely and Mrs Coates. —A. and N.Z. Cable.