BRITISH AVIATION

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17181, 11 February 1930, Page 7

BRITISH AVIATION

PROGRESS IN COMMERCE 19,090 MILES OF SERVICES THIS YEAR’S DEVELOPMENTS (British Official Wireless.) Roc. 10 n..m RUGBY. Feh. 10. Lord Thomson, the Air Minister, addressing the British Empire League, mentioned the possibility of the Imperial air line to India being extended to Australia, and of the service from Egypt to South Africa being opened this year. He ‘said the air routes of the British Empire in 11)28 amounted to 11,000 miles, and in ID2D to 19,000 miles. A reasonable expectation for 1930 was an increase to 35,000 miles by extensions to South Africa, and Australia. The mileage in 1929 was: Canada, 6500 miles; Australia, 5500 miles; South Africa, 1500 miles; India, 715 miles; and Great Britain, 5000 miles. Lord Thomson added that the airship programme had been well worth the money spent on it, and the t\yo new airships had given enough satisfaction to justify reasonable optimism about this form of transportation. It was essentially the vehicle for passing over the seas. Air development, unlike the development of the mercantile marine, had grown in the hothouse of war, which had forced it artificially, and it had to be maintained artificially at present, unless the British people were prepared to drop out of the march of human progress.

The llandley-Pnge aircraft factory is engaged on the building of eight 2000 horse-power biplanes capable of carrying 40 passengers. These machines, which will be the largest commercial planes in existence, have have ordered for the European and Eastern services of Imperial Airways. The first is expected to take the air about, midsummer. These big craft will normally not be housed in sheds. They are being constructed to withstand in the open all but extremely bad weather conditions. IN 12 DAYS LONDON TO MELBOURNE LONDON, Jan. 27. A 12 days’ London-Melbourne air service in 1951 was foreshadowed in a speech by Sir Seftcn Brancker, Director of Civil Aviation, at the Aldwych Club. Similarly, ho anticipated a through air mail from the Cape to Cairo. If the nation thought Imperially and acted forthwith, a decade see wonderful flying statistics. The United States would bo knocked out entirely. The British certificate for airworthiness was now the world’s best salesman for British aircraft, and the equivalent of an A 1 at Lloyd’s, said Sir Sefton. Ho added that scientific knowledge showed that the speed attained at the Schneider Cup races could be surpassed, and that there was no reason why, sooner or later, travel should not be as fast as sound.