NORTH ATLANTIC SERVICES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22779, 15 January 1936, Page 10

NORTH ATLANTIC SERVICES

ANTICIPATIONS FOR 1938 EXPERIMENTAL FLIGHTS THIS YEAR (From Ocr Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, December 21. Experimental flights which may lead to the opening of regular transatlantic aeroplane services within the next 18 months will be begun, according to present plans', in the early summer of 1936. The conference in Washington of representatives of Great Britain, the United States, Canada, and the Irish Free State, has concluded successfully the all-important preliminary negotiations. Full co-operu-tion between the four countries is assured, and the fact is noted with deep satisfaction in London. The share in the enterprise of the smallest of the four States promises to be a vital one. The probable site of the European terminal is near Foynes, on the southern bank of the River Shannon. Here is a very large area of flat laud, adjoining an imposing stretch of land-locked water in the Shannon, which at this point is more than eight miles wide. Experts are convinced that it offers an unrivalled base for landplane and seaplane operation.

A statement issued at the end of the Washington conference reveals that when a full regular service is*inaugurated, “it is provided that there will be four round trips per week.” Two routes are con templated, one by way of Newfoundland, and the other, more southerly, by way of the Azores and Bermuda. The southerly route is obviously the easier route in the winter months, though once the technical difficulties are surmounted and knowledge has accrued of flying conditions over the ocean at all periods of the year, the northerly route seems likely to accommodate most of the traffic even during the winter, because it is shorter and makes for much quicker journeys. Working of the route will be entrusted to Imperial Airways and Pan-American Airways under an interlocking flight arrangement. Landing rights will be granted to British planes in American territory and to United States craft on this side. “ DOUBLE-PLANE ” EXPERIMENTS. The American company proposes to employ flying boats of the type which operate services in the Pacific Ocean. Imperial Airways will attack the problem along two main lines. Engaged in next year’s experimental crossings will be one of the 29 large four-engined monoplane boats now in course of construction at the Short works, equipped with fuel tankage adequate for the transocean journey, and the novel Mayo composite aircraft which employs a large flying boat as the aerial launching platform of a smaller and very heavily laden four-engined seaplane. The craft takes off under the,, power of all eight motors —four Pegasus 900 h.p. units in the “ bearer-plane ” and four Napier Rapier H-shaped 350 h.p. engines in the upper component. At operational height of some 10,000 feet, the two machines separate and the upper component continues the journey alone. Thug the craft is launched with a load on board that it could not take off from the surface unaided. The project is a most ingenious approach to the problem of combining long range and high payload in one and the same aeroplane and the first flights of the Mayo machine are awaited with the keenest interest. The craft is now in an advanced stage of construction at the Short works, and is expected to take the air for the first time late in the coming spring. Calculations show that the invention should double the range of a seaplane, and treble that of a land plane. Alternatively, very much heavier loads than are usual nowadays could be carried over stages of the lengths now generally worked.