FORTY SEATERS.

Western Star, 2 October 1936, Page 2

FORTY SEATERS.

NEW FRENCH AIR LINERS French airliners to carry 40 passengers and a crew of four are shortly to bo put oil the London-Paris-Lyons-Mar-seilles route, says the ‘Daily Telegraph.’ The Golden Clippers now in use are not out of date, but increasing traffic demands machines of greater capacity. The now type is a Furman, of winch six are being built. They have a front bay window in the cabin giving an unrestricted view lovward, a cocktail bar, a library, a bridge room, and two saloons. Of the first two, one is fitted with four Ghoine Rhone 80U h.p. engines and the other with four llispano-Siiiza 690 h.p. engines. The results of comparison in operation will determine the choice of engines for the other four. It is a noteworthy fact that in all the principal airline countries four-engined 40seaters are now being built. Great Britain will have flying boats and land aeroplanes of this capacity. The United States will soon have the new 40-sea ter Douglas, and Holland, France, and Germany havo

adopted the same policy. Aiiline developments in I' ranee at the present moment are of much interest. A Far Eastern machine for 16 sleeping berths, or 24 day seats, is being built by Marcel Bloch. It will have four engines. On the South Atlantic service France is using both flying boats and land aeroplanes. One hundred successful mailcarrying flights have already been made. To bo first in the field with a regular Atlantic passenger flying heat, service is 11 10 object, of Air France, and two fourengined flying boats capable of carrying a ton of mail 3,000 miles against a 30 miles per hour head wind have been launched.

One lias nearly finished its tests, and the other is about to begin thorn. Both have comfortable sleeping quarters for four passengers. Air France linos now span the old a..il the new worlds. There is a close-knit European system and two loot; (listanco arms, one across two continents ami an ocean to Santiago on the Pacific coast, and tiic other across India to Hanoi in French Indo-China.