NEW AFRICAN AIRLINE.

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18160, 27 October 1930, Page 9

NEW AFRICAN AIRLINE.

TO START IN JANUARY. CAPE-TO-CAIRO SERVICE. (From a Correspondent.) LONDON, September 20. The first hall' of the long-discussed British air-mail route from Cairo to Cape Town, over Africa’s deserts, swamps, forests and high mountain ranges, which eventually will bring j London within nine days of the Cape, , will be opened in January, according to arrangements completed yesterday. 1 j This section will terminate at i Kisudu, on Lake Victoria, 2,620 miles ' from Cairo. The last section, 3130 miles to Cape Town, will be opened a, few months later. The whole route will be operated by j the Imperial Airways Company, which now runs a. weekly service from London to Alexandria as a part of the England-to-India service. The Cape-to-Cairo Airline will follow. the course of the Nile, then pass through Uganda and Rhodesia to South Africa. As no satisfactory landing grounds have been found, flying boats will be used between Khartum and Kismu. The journey through Africa will occupy nine days at the start, but it is expected, by means of night flying, to make the stages between Cairo and Khartum in one day and condense the three days’ journey between Nairobi and Johannesburg into two. On this route the aircraft will have to pass over every kind of physical obstacle to aviation and operate in a wide variety of climatic and atmos- ' pheric conditions, encountering dust storms, heavy clouds, fog, tropical thunderstorms and gales. The central part of the route will serve undeveloped territory, and from Khartum to Broken Hill —more than 2500 miles—the airmail lines will be almost the only means of communication.