AIR LIGHTHOUSES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3912, 5 March 1929, Page 10

AIR LIGHTHOUSES.

NIGHT FLYING IN AUSTRALIA.

CONVEYANCE OF MAILS. . (From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, February 8.

If the authorities approve of the giant air beacon which Union Theatres, Ltd.,proposes to erect at its own expense and also to maintain, on top of the colossal State theatre and shopping block in Market street, in the heart of the city, that big picture enterprise will be credited with a very graceful and practical gesture towards the furtherance of commercial aviation, by assisting to make night flying safe, especially as" it relates to the carriage of mails. There is an insistent demand that aeroplanes shall be used more largely than at present for mail conveyance. The air beacon, 50 feet in height, 250 feet above the street level, and flashing out a revolving beam of light for a distance of 15 or 20 miles, would be a nice advertisement for the State Theatre, which is to be opened about April. But that, as Kipling says, is merely by the way. It will make the towering new theatre a landmark all over the metropolis. Whether the Civil Aviation Department, the Navigation Department, and the civic authorities will pass favourable judgment on the proposal and deem it a suitable site for an air beacon for sky riders at. night, remains to be seen. Night flying with mails and passengers will certainly never come into its own in Australia, as it has done in Europe and in America, without air beacons. The need for them was specially emphasised at Richmond, the New South Wales base of the Royal Air Force, when Kingsford-Smith and Ulm landed on their return Tasman flight. The air lighthouse crowning the State Theatre, assuming its installation is sanctioned, will be something like the famous Lindberg beacon in the United States, and will, in fact, be Sydney’s Eiffel Tower in miniature. The question whether it will be called the Kingsford-Smith or the Hinkler beacon will be left to the popular choice of the public. This will be another enterprising move which is likely to make opposition picture interests green with jealousy. There will, of course, be air beacons traversing the route of the big PerthAdelaide service,, to operate in a few months, but outside of that the huge revolving light surmounting the State Theatre will be the only beacon of its kind in Australia. It is something of a commentary on the outlook in Australia on commercial aviation, especially when one thinks of the galaxy of brilliant airmen which the Coinmonweath has produced. The late Harry Hawker, for example, Sir Ross Smith and Sir Keith Smith, who blazed the air trail from England to Australia, Parer aad MTntosh, whose amazing

flight from London in a gimcrack machine is a matter of history • Bert Hinkler, the young Queenslander, whose solo dash from England to Australia in a light aeroplane will always remain of the world’s epic flights; KingsfordSmith and Ulm, whose great Pacific and Tasman flights added another brilliant page to aviation history! Sir George Wilkins, and others. Nothwithstanding these inspiring examples, Australia is a backward country as far as aviation is concerned. What has been accomplished is owing in the main to private commercial enterprises and to aero clubs. As for the Royal Air Force its story is one of tragic disasters.

What Australia needs is half a dozen practical air-minded politicians in the Federal Legislature. The president of the Aero Club of New South Wales (Captain Geoffrey Hughes) „ who is an old war pilot, aspired to parliamentary honours at the latest Federal elections, but, unfortunately for aviation, he was turned down at the selection ballots. Few men have done more to promote flying in Australia than Captain Hughes, whose status the Commonwealth Government fittingly acknowledged when it appointed him as the mouthpiece of unofficial aviation interests at the big international Air Conference in Washington.