CONQUEST OF THE AIR

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIV, 29 December 1926, Page 5

CONQUEST OF THE AIR

CICANTIC AIR FLEET. LONDON, November 20. A certain wealthy man, marooned in London during the August holiday season, decided on a Sunday to treat his wife and daughter to a novel outing (writes Sir Percival Phillips, the London correspondent of the Johannesburg “Sunday Times”). He telephoned to Croydon Aerodrome for an “air taxi,’ in which the three of them flew to Ostend for lunch. They strolled on the front for half an hour afterwards, then flew on to Brussels for tea, motored through the Bois de la Cambre, the fashionable afternoon rendezvous for smart people, returned to their “air taxi” at 5.30, and were home again in London in time for dinner. These compact day and week-end dashes to the Continent have become verv popular with the owners of well-filled purses, and some pilots are kept on duty at Croydon solely to answer the sudden •VatJYfor “the next taxi from the rank.” Meanwhile all the Great Powers are concentrating on the development of aircraft for commercial and defensive purposes. The progress made in certain countries is said to be amazing, although naturally publicity is shunned by the engineers engaged in enlarging and stabilising the various types of aeroplanes. Two passenger planes which have just been put on the London-Paris run are far in advance of those used heretofore, with their sumptuous saloons fitted with armchairs, buffet service, and periodicals for travellers who do not care to watch the landscape below. German aircraft engineers pin their faith to the all-metal type of planes, and the success achieved in recent experiments has resulted in the Japanese Government ordering one which will carry 100 passengers. Another gigantic plane, with six hulls, and room for 130 people and six tons of merchandise, is being constructed for long-distance flights. The Germans have their eye on the transatlantic route, and I understand that experimental non-stop flights will be made next spring with an all-metal aircraft, in which sixty guesits will be invited to participate. “The progress made in the past year has been so rapid,” a well-known English designer of aeroplanes said to me this week, “that the day is not very far distant when we shall have air liners carrying 200 passengers as a normal load, flying from London to New York in twelve hours.” I am inclined to think that the “air taxi” habit will never become popular with peeple who delight in the English countryside. Aloft they miss its beauties. This opinion is confirmed by Sir John Rhodes, who has his own private aeroplane, and uses it almost as freely as you or I would use a Rolls-Royce (if we had one). Sir John bought a “Moth” type of plane when they cost £9OO (they have since come down to £1CO), and he garages it at Stagg Lane Aerodrome, near London. “If it is a fine week-end,” he said, “I can drive out to the aerodrome, take the ’plane out of its hangar, unfold the wings without help, and fly away with as little trouble as taking a car out of its garage. Last week I did four days’ flying over 792 miles of ground. My total expenses, including petrol and oil, landing fees, and housing, were £8 4s. This works out at 2.48 pence per mile. There is one disappointment about air travel. The earth looks just like a coloured map. You miss the beauty of the scenery. The joy and unexpectedness of winding roads and charming vistas is not known in the air, and heights, unless they are very pronounced, do not show up at all.