AIR MAIL SERVICE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22102, 4 November 1933, Page 12

AIR MAIL SERVICE

EXTENSION TO DOMINION PRACTICABLE WITHIN TEN YEARS. (Special to Daily Times.) AUCKLAND, November 3. The opinion that a passenger and air mail service across the Tasman was a reasonable extension of the proposed England-Australia service within' the next ten years was expressed by Mr W. Hudson Fysh, managing director of the Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services, Limited, who is a through passenger oii the Monterey on his way home to Australia. Mr Fysh travelled from Australia to England in the Imperial Airways • plane Astraea, which made a special survey flight in connection with the proposed extension of the airway service from Singapore to Australia. He went to England to gather information likely to be of value to his company in tendering for the contract for the extension of the service from Singapore. In the course of his investigations Mr Fysh travelled on the main British, French, German and Dutch airway lines, and also flew across the United States in the latest American Boeing plane, which has a cruising speed of 160 miles per hour. The Imperial Airways service between London and Paris was more impressive than any others he saw. The planes in this eervice, carrying up to 38 passengers, flew in all kinds* of weather and kept excellently to their time tables. In the matter of speed the American services were well ahead of all the others for the reason that that type of aviation had been specially developed in the States. Commercial aviation in Great Britain, he said, was making tremendous strides. It was proposed, Mr Fysh said, that the trip from England to Australia should occupy 16 days. That time, he thought, compared favourably with any other similar service in the world. It was far better to lay a new and difficult service on sure foundations and then improve it as conditions warranted than to aim at speed alone. The proposed time table had been fixed by the British and Australian Governments. The schedule which allowed for 16 days on the journey, reduced the time occupied on the steamer routes by half. The time, he said, could not be compared with the time occupied by the planes in the transAmerica services in which 1300 air lighthouses, each burning a light of 2,000,000 candle power, made night flying practicable. If night flying was to be attempted on the England-Australia route, some similar scheme of lighting would have to be considered. The most difficult stretch of the Journey between England and Australia. Mr Fysh said, would be the crossing of the Timor Sea, a distance of 520 miles, which would be the longest ocean span covered by any air service in the world. For such a flight machines of extreme safety were essential apd nothing but four-engined craft could be considered. In both England and America, he said, keen interest was being taken in the proposed transatlantic service, and he believed that such a service would become a fact within a few years.