TRANS-ATLANTIC AIR RIVALRY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19757, 11 October 1938, Page 7

TRANS-ATLANTIC AIR RIVALRY

One Thursday recently, New Yorkers had the satisfaction of reading the London newspapers published on Wednesday. This was made possible by the enterprise of British publishers in putting batches of papers aboard the pickaback seaplane Mercury for the trans-Atlantic crossing, states the New York correspondent of the London Observer. The papers sold in the streets like hot cakes, an after-theatre crowd paying as much as a dollar a copy. Survey flights such as the Mercury made in preparation for trans-Atlantic passenger and mail services are now in full swing. At Port Washington, on Long Island, about 100 journalists and oflicials greeted the British seaplane. Next day journalists and officials went out again to meet the German seaplane Nordmeer, engaged on a similar mission. The Nordmeer was also catapulted from a mother ship, the Schwabenland. which discharged the seaplane in the Azores, whence it travelled non-stop to New York, at least, New York’s oceanic airport, Port Washington. This lap is 2397 miles, as compared with the Foynes-Monlreal lap of 2715 miles flown by the Mercury. Both the British and the Germans intend to make other survey flights. The French, too, will inaugurate their own trials soon, so that, judging from the full schedule announced by these three nations. Port Washington, which is the air base of Pan-American airways, will be a busy trans-Atlantic airport this summer. Meanwhile Pan-American, which long ago completed its trans-Atlantic surveys, announces that it will be ready to go into scheduled transoceanic service “by the end of the summer.” Six super-clippers are in commission, which will be the largest transport aircraft in the world. The first is still undergoing engineering tests at the Boeing Aeroplane Company’s base at Seattle. But prelimin-

ary water and air tests indicate that these giant 6000 horse-power 74passenger flying-boats will exceed every specification set for them. The first flight will be via the Azores to Lisbon. In time the service will be extended to England', but under the reciprocal arrangements which have been concluded with Imperial Airways both systems will start this direct service simultaneously.

Reciprocity will even go to the extent of matching schedules. How fre-

quent they will be has not yet been settled finally. Over the Pacific PanAmerican maintains a weekly service, but the 9000-milc Pacific is. of course, less travelled than the 3000-nnlc Atlantic. There will also be a free and full interchange of radio and meteorological assistance.

At the same time the services will be in brisk competition for the coming trans-Atlantic air business. And it looks as if it will be big business. So many flying-boats are in commis-

British, German, and American Activity

Air and Sea Rivalry

sion in America and Europe, so much attention is paid to the survey nights, that popular imagination has' been stitired about the potentialities of trans-Atlantic tranic.

The prospect is held out ol a rapidly approaching future when lhe transAtlantic skies will be as crowded with aircraft as the seas arc with surface craft. Indeed, Howard Hughes, the round-the-world flyer, says that the time is coming soon when the flying-boat will supplant the ocean liner.

Such visions are not shared by other aeronautical experts. It is true that the seat-mile cost is cheaper on the aeroplane than on the liner. Also, unlike some other operations, the larger the air unit the more efficient the air service. Still, the development of trans-oceanic flying, it is felt, is bound to be slow enough to keep the shipping companies from worrying about oonderablc competition. This is the gist of individual opinions gathered from organisations in terested m aircraft, development. In answer to a question about au-sea rivalry, one official replied with an l other question; H*ls the Croydon-Faris sfh‘ViC6 destroyed your railroad and shipping business between the two capitals? Still, those who read Wednesday's London newspapers in a New York restaurant oil Thursday felt as if a miracle had been enacted, even though the miracle might not be so transforming in the foreseeable future ails currently expected.