AIR TRANSPORT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22612, 2 July 1935, Page 10

AIR TRANSPORT

MAILS AND FREIGHT PROGRESS OF THE YEARS. More than 2,500,000 miles were flown by the air-liners of Imperial Airways during 1934. This figure compares with approximately 2,300,000 miles for 1933. The progress of air transport is illustrated, strikingly, if one contrasts the statistics of present-day air mails with those of the first officially-sanctioned aeroplane mail to be flown in England, the twenty-fourth anniversary of which is to be celebrated this summer. That pioneer Hendon-Windsor service of 1911, operated over a distance of 20 miles, compared with the 20,000 miles of route flown over by Jmperial Airways and its associated companies to-day. The machines in use on that first service were driven by single engines of 50 h.p., and had a wing-span of not more than 28ft or 30ft. Now the big mail liners are driven by four engines, developing a total of more than 2000 h.p., and have a wing-span of 130 ft. The monoplane which inaugurated the Hendon-Windsor air mail of 1911 carried just its pilot, Mr Gustav Hamel, and a bag of letters weighing 23ilb; one of the four-motored air liners of to-day will lift a load of just over three tons. Those first mail-carrying aeroplanes flew at from 40 to 50 miles an hour; the four-engined aircraft, even carrying considerable mail loads, call attain a speed of 175 miles an hour. _ “On our line to Paris,” said an Imperial Airways official, “we have been having exceptionally large consignments of wireless apparatus, recently, while on the service to Brussels there has been a continued increase in the quantity of wireless valves consigned by air. For delicate articles, the advantages of air transport, with its absence of jolting or vibration, are considerable, valves requiring no special packing. The same applies to electrical appliances, scientific instruments, and fragile goods of all kinds. Handling is reduced to a minimum. “ Big air liners now carry freight consignments of a size and weight it would, have been impossible to handle not long ago. On the route to Germany a piece of machinery weighing over half a ton was air-borne, and one of our Paris machines had among its cargo a small motor-car. " Should they prove too bulky for despatch as a single unit, mechanical parts can usually be divided into several separate consignments for air transit. In this way such thinzs as urgently required drilling machinery, pump fittings and engine parts are carried by our services to points along the Africa and India routes, saving many days, and often weeks, as compared with surface transport.”