40-SEATER PLANE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19104, 27 August 1936, Page 14

40-SEATER PLANE

MODERN FRENCH LINER DEMAND OF TRAFFIC ..'.-..... ,'. .LONDON, July 14. French air liners to carry 40 passengers and a. crew 0 f four .ire shortly to be put on the London-Paris-Lyons-Marseilles route. The Golden Clippers now in use "are not., out-of-date, but increasing traffic demands machines of greater capacity; The new type is a Farman. of which six are being built. yThey have a front bay. window in the cabin giving an unrestricted view forward, a cocktail bar, a library, a bridge room, and two saloons. Of the first two, one is fitted with "four Gnome Rhone 800. h.p. engines, and the other with four HispanoSuiza 690 h.p. engines. The results of comparison .in operation, will determine the choice of engines for the other four. It is a noteworthy fact that in all the principal air line countries fourengined 40-seaters are now being built. Great Britain will have flying boats and land 'planes of this capacity. The United States will soon have the new 40-seater Douglas, and Holland, France, and Germany have adopted the ;same policy. FAR EAST MACHINE Air line developments in France at the present moment are of much interest. A Far Eastern machine for 16 sleeping berths, or 24 day seats. is being built by Marcel Bloch. It will have four engines. On the South Atlantic service France is using both flying boats and land 'planes. One hundred successful mail-carrying flights already have been made. To be first in the field with a regular Atlantic passenger flying boat service is the object of Air France, and two four-engined flying boats capable of carrying a ton of mail 3000 miles against a 30 miles per hour head-wind have been launched. One has already finished its tests, and the other is about to begin them. Both have comfortable sleeping \ quarters for four passengers. Air France lines now span the old and the new worlds. There is a close-knit European system and two long-distance arms, one across two continents and an ocean to Santiago on the Pacific coast, and the other across India- %o Hanoi in French Indo-China.