GERMANY LEADS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20543, 19 February 1935, Page 1

GERMANY LEADS.

Has World’s Best Record for Ocean Flights. LONDON, February 10. The Berlin correspondent of “ The Times ” say*s that although the British airship and aeroplane blazed the transAtlantic trail years ahead of competitors, Germany, with fewer opportunities than most countries, leads the world in trans-oceanic flying. So far Germany has carried out over 100 trans-Atlantic flights, including those by Zeppelins. The air mail service to South America flies with clockwork regularity weekly, carrying 30,000 postal packets and averaging four day*s to Brazil. This time, probably* in 1935 and certainly in 1936, will be reduced to three days. British Gambia, an ideal base for a British service, sees the regular arrival of German mail planes.

The depot-ships Westfalen and Schwabenland, off the African and South American coasts, receive and despatch the flving-boats. These depot-ships, with trailed landing aprons and catapults, are the primitive forerunners of great future steel islands. Germany*, in view of the developments with the newest Zeppelin, LZI29. believes in simultaneous development of airship and aeroplane and is aiming to establish Germany commercially in the foremost place in the air. The decision to make Frankfurt-on-Main a future airship base shows that Germany still hopes to become the centre of a network of international airship services, in which she possesses an almost unapproachable lead.