The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND SATURDAY, JULY 13, 1929 AIRWAYS OF THE EMPIRE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 714, 13 July 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND SATURDAY, JULY 13, 1929 AIRWAYS OF THE EMPIRE

FE mortality record of aviation is the most remarkable thing in modern history. Eliminating the havoc of the world war in the air, the fatalities in aerial transport are on a level with dustcart accidents. Yes, the humblest form of municipal transport alone is safer than aircraft. For each flying fatality, airmen and passengers combined must fly 1,400,000 miles, or a distance of 60 times the circumference of the earth at the Equator. - And all the wonders of flying have happened within a little more than the past quarter of this century. Rather less than twenty-six years ago Orville Wright, from Kill Devil Hill, North Carolina, was the first man to leave the ground in an airplane and fly. On the same day, in the same crude craft, his brother Wilbur broke the first aviation record and flew 825 feet in 59 seconds. The machine was a biplane, and the pilot lay prone on the lower wing. The brothers Wright made 160 flights before and until Orville crashed and was seriously injured. Then in 1908 Santos-Dumont, a Brazilian residing in Paris, flew in a biplane of his own construction and remained in the air 21 seconds. A year later Louis Bleriot flew across the English Channel, covering 20 miles in 37 minutes. It is not necessary to recount in detail the amazing longdistance flights that have been accomplished since the first transatlantic crossing ten years ago. Enough to say that famous airmen think nothing of flying across the world, expecting to keep to their flying schedule with more dependable closeness than that now to be expected from the running of the Limited Express from Wellington to Auckland. And only the edge of possibilities has been reached! Today, there is confident talk of inaugurating an air-trans-port service from England to Australia and New Zealand. Possibly children alone may look forward to a flight in their time from Auckland to London, but there is every probability that middle-aged men may expect, before old age keeps them to bowling greens, to enjoy flights from New Zealand to Australia, thence in pleasant hops to the delightful islands in the South Seas. An Empire Air Route already has been mapped out, hut so far - the regular service is limited to a distance of five thousand miles. It has been noted as a fact of interest which too often is forgotten that the first flight from London to India was made ten years ago in a four-engined Handley-Page airplane. Since then, innumerable flights have been accomplished over the same route without any fuss or blaze of publicity, while every year the Royal Air Force has made regular flights over the future Cairo-Capetown route. There are great airmen other than Cobham and Kingsford Smith who are blazing the trail for Empire and world air-trade in our time and that of succeeding' generations. It has been proved that it is reasonable to anticipate a regular service from London to India. The present service takes seven days and costs jSI3O. Thus the airway costs about half as much again as the normal steamship service, but it reduces the time of travel to less than one-third of the fastest steamer’s time. Over some parts of the route flying conditions are severe and trying. Dust storms arising from the desert may extend up to 10,000 feet. Because of the flatness and featureless nature of the Syrian Desert, it has been found necessary to mark the ground route from Gaza to Bagdad hv a plough-track for 660 miles—surely the longest furrow in the world. The latest triumph of the Southern Cross and its competent crew has demonstrated that, with ordinary luck, an air-service from Australia to India, traversing the distance within a week’s flying, is well within the hounds of probability in the near future. It may be some time yet before men with capital will care to invest their money in such transport services, particularly in view of the relatively high cost of carrying passengers, hut development would reduce expenditure. There should at least be a great future demand for the use of long-distance aircraft in transporting mail and bullion. It has been pointed out that the advantage of speed in air-travel is so great that it enhances other advantages. In the transport of bullion, for example, there is a considerable saving in interest, due to the shorter time spent in transit. And it will cost thieves a lot of money to become successful air highwaymen. Already, on the British airlines, the insurance rates for goods are less than half those quoted for land or sea transport, largely because of the fewer opportunities for tampering with valuable consignments en route. There will be no successful round-the-world air services until all countries learn to love one another politically. So far, the real stumbling-block to the development of commerical aviation over many different lands has been the hesitation of foreign governments to give airmen the right to fly over or land on their territory. Tf diplomacy may not overcome this political difficulty, designers and builders of aircraft will have to construct such long-distance craft as need only land in friendly territory. This must become an important question for British airmen, whose Empire is distributed all over the world. Meanwhile, the prospect of Empire airways looms nearer, and great triumphs in the air like those of Kingsford Smith and Him, Cobham and Bert Hinkler do more than anything else to hasten the development of Imperial aviation both for the benefit of trade and sentiment.