AVIATION EXPERTS VISITING N.Z.

Wanganui Chronicle, 10 May 1947, Page 5

AVIATION EXPERTS VISITING N.Z.

(P.A.) Auckland. May 9. One of the pioneers in commercial aviation and now assistant to the chairman of the British Overseas Airways Corporation, Air Commodore H. G. Brackley, arrived from Sydney by Tasman Empire Airways flying-boat. He will discuss trends in civil aviation with representatives of Tasman Em* 'pire Airways and will be in Auckland until Tuesday. From New Zealand he will leave b” Pan-American Airways aircraft on a tour of the Pacific and will arrive in the United States tn time to meet Lord Knollys, chairman of the corporation, who, accompanied by Group Captain Whitney Straight, another official, will fly to New Zealand in a Lancastrian aircraft toward the end of this month.

In an interview he said production -T flving-boats was making headway. The first of the Shortts Solent clas* aircraft would be in the air this week. They would be u-sod on the route.from England to Australia with Lancastrian aircraft, either this year or early next

year. They looked like an enlarged version of the Tasman class flyingboats but were faster, ho said. The future of New Zealand as a testing ground for British military aircraft was dis sussed by Mr P. C. Birch, Australasian representative of Rolls Royce ltd. who arrived from Sydney by Tanman Emnire Airway? flying-boat. He considered distinct possibilities existed in this country for trying out. aeroplanes on a larger scale than at present, and it was with the view to promoting better methods for keepin r the Dominion bette- informed of trends of aircraft production in the United Kingdom that he had mad-? the trip.