TASMAN AIR SERVICE NEXT MONTH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 84, Issue 68, 21 March 1940, Page 6

TASMAN AIR SERVICE NEXT MONTH

EVERYTHING READY FOR FIRST FLIGHTS PRIORITY OF DEMANDS OF MILITARY AVIATION (By Telegraph—Pre. 3 Association —Copyright) LONDON, March 19. “It is inevitable in time of war,” said Mr. E. Tilson Shepherd in_ a broadcast, “that commercial aviation must suffer because of the needs of military aviation.” The tremendous effort being put forward in extending the Royal Air Force, the Empire air training scheme, and the extension of military aviation in Australia. New Zealand, and South Africa, had all tended to slow down the progress in the civil sphere. The call of military aviation had much affected the plans for the development of civil air services. The most serious difficulty arose in the replacement of outworn and out-of-date aircraft and in the provision of new types. “It was with great pleasure, therefore, that we heard of the departure of the flying-boat Awarua for Sydney and New Zealand to co-operate with her sister-ship Aotearoa in the inauguration of the weekly service between Sydney and Auckland in extension of the existing Empire services," said Mr . Shepherd. “Aotearoa has been in New Zealand for some months now and has been carrying out all the tests and trials necessary before such an extension could be put into operation. The efficiency of weather forecast services, the moorings and slipways provided at the terminae, and a thousand and one other things had all to be checked. And now everything is ready for the first service flights on the 1200-mile Tasman crossing. The distance to be covered may be small but that 1200 miles sea crossing is comparable in flying conditoins only to the Atlantic.

Special Missions, s "Aotearoa has also done good service in carrying between the two Dominions in the South Pacific some important people on special missions, notably the acting-Prime Minister of New Zealand, Hon. P. Fraser, on the beginning of his hurried trip to England for a conference soon after the outbreak of war. “Had war not intervened, there is no doubt that the extension at the other end of the Empire service, that across the Atlantic from Britain to Canada, would already be in operation. The specially-designed flyingboats Cabot and Caribou were, no.vever, taken over by the Royal Air Force, and the trans-Atlantic trials, which were almost finished, had to oc suspended. “This service will be established as soon as circumstances permit, and then there will rqmain only one final link, that already envisaged octwee i Vancouver and Auckland via Honolulu and other Pacific Ocean islantu, to finish the girdle of the globe by tne civil air services of the Britisa Empire." The Awarua will inaugurate n-xt month the air-mail service between Australia and New Zealand. When this service is begun and the North Atlantic air-mail service resumed associated Empire organisations will have a continuous air route of nearly 18,000 miles—the longest commercial air route in the world.