Air Transport News
Page 59
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USING THE D.H.86s AT HOME AND 'OVERSEAS.
FOLLOWING the -experience of the past nine months in the use of D.H.86 Express Air Liners (with four Gipsy Six 200 hp. engines) for the Singapore—Brisbane section of the England—Australia Imperial mail service, Imperial Airways, Ltd., is now contemplating using the same type on further important branch lines in remote parts of the world.
The company has itself used the D.H.86 for internal lines in Britain, which it runs for Railway Air Services, Ltd., and for its daily service between London and Budapest. Furthermore, the D.H.86 has done most of the trips on the twice-weekly set-vice to Rome and Brindisi.
Now, one of these machines, the Dorado, has left for Penang, commanded by Captain W. Armstrong, and will make six return trips from Penang to Hong Kong by way of Saigon and Tourane, as a trial for the branch service which is planned. Another important Imperial branch line on which D.H.86s will probably be seen before the end of the year is that from Khartum to Kotonu, across the southern verge of the Sahara.
LUNDY ISLAND SERVICE PLANS.
THEservice which Mr. R. T. Boyd, of Messrs. Atlantic Coast Air Services, ran experimentally last summer between Barnstaple and Lundy Island, has justified itself as a: regular service this year and the machines have been running more than 50 per cent. full throughout the season. They have carried as-many as. 14-passengers each way in a day. Conditions -at. Lundy Island are unfavourable to anything but fair-weather flying.
This year Mr. Boyd has experimented with an on-demand service from Barnstaple to Cardiff with a single fare of 23s. 6d. This is doing fairly well and he expects to run it as a regular weekday service next summer.
He has also experimented with a feeder route from Barnstaple to Torquay (Denbury) to connect with the Provincial Airways service between London and Plymouth, but this has not worked out so promisingly and will probably remain an on-demand service.
ABERDEEN AIRWAYS PROSPECTS.
THE board of Aberdeen Airways, Ltd., has been strengthened by the addition of Mr. A. W. Cowen, a director of the Caledonian Insurance Co., and of Redpath Brown and Co., Ltd., and chairman of Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce.
The fleet comprises two de Havilland Dragons, two Dragon Rapides and a Short Scion, whilst supplementary machines include a Klemm Eagle and a Puss Moth. Aberdeen Airways, Ltd., reports that it has carried over 1,00 passengers during the .present season. It has established at Dyce an airport of good size with excellent amenities.
This year it has established its Aber deen — Caithness — Thurso — Stromness—Kirkwall line, which includes the 45-mite crossing of the Moray Firth and the 37-mile crossing of the Pent land Firth. The company has also been running between Aberdeen and Edinburgh and intends to continue this service and to open a line to Hull.
MONTROSE SELLS ITS AERODROME.
iTONTROSE Town Council has INIagreed to sell to the Air Ministry a large area of land adjoining Montrose links. The area covers 263 acres, the purchase price being 47,600. The ground includes the site of the present aerodrome and adjacent land. Should the aerodrome cease to exist as a flying school or as the quarters of the regular flying squadron, it was decided that the council should have the first option to repurchase from the Ministry.
AIRMAILS IN THE CHANNEL ISLANDS.
REGARDING the recent statement in The Commercial Motor about the possibilities of an early start of an airmail service between the Channel Islands and the mainland of England, the Post Office now informs us that although it is ready to go ahead with the scheine the difficulty of arranging the schedules cannot be overcome .until the landing grounds at Alderney and elsewhere are more advanced, As things stand at present an airmail service is likely to be started in January or February and it is more than probable that the chief inaugural ceremony will be held in Guernsey.
AIR TRANSPORT FOR PICTURE TELEGRAPHY UNIT.
AFEW days ago, Birkett Air Service, Ltd„ Heston, which, works mainly for the Press, made possible a particularly fast example of newspaper work by carrying a complete picturetelegraphy unit to the Continent. The unit was flown across to Brussels in the company's Short Scion, was used for transmitting pictures to England and was then flown on to Geneva, whence more pictures were telegraphed back to Fleet Street before the aeroplane returned to Heston with its load.
This news suggests that thenextstage to sending Press photographers by air to fly back with the pictures is to use a picture.telegraplay unit more or less permanently fitted into a suitable aeroplane (preferably multi-engined) and to fly it from place to place, as items of news arise. MARKED IMPROVEMENTS AT GRAVESEND.
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A RECENT visit to Gravesend Air
port, which has been taken over by Airports, Ltd., showed the improvements that are being made. The landing ground has been extended by 23 acres on the south side, so that its area is now 175 acres, and there are runways in both cardinal and quadrantal directions of over 1,000 yards.
A Customs examination area has been marked out in front of the main building, and the Customs building has been refitted to conforni with statutory requirements. Three General Electric 9-kw. triple-trough floodlights and about 27 of the latest G.E.C. boundary lights should be installed by the middle of October. A lighted wind T has already been installed.
The terminal building has been refurnished and has bedrooms to sleep seven visitors. The petrol pumps are to be shifted to a new 5,000-gallon storage tank near the hangar. This hangar, incidentally, has a 120-ft. door width and 18,000 sq. ft. of effective aircraft housing space. A company is being formed to do engineering and maintenance work, and a new hangar will be built for this purpose. It will be 100 ft. by 80 ft.
The aim of Airports, Ltd., is to bring Gravesend up to the A. 1.a. Air Ministry standard in every respect, at the earliest possible date.
R.A.S. WINTER SCHEDULE.
ONSeptember 16, Railway Air Services, Ltd., started its winter schedule. The northbound service leaves Croydon at 9.45 a.m., instead of 3.10 p.m., and reaches Glasgow (Renfrew) at 2 p.m., instead of 7.30 p.m. The southbound service leaves Glasgow at 3.15 a.m., instead of 8.45 a.m., and arrives at Croydon at 1.30 p.m., instead of 1.5 p.m. The machines call as before at Birmingham, Stake-on-Trent (on request) and Liverpool.
The Manchester—Liverpool—Blackpool—Isle-of-Man section will continue to be flown in the winter, but instead of six trips daily each way (Sundays included) there will be two (Sundays excepted). Instead of Manchester, Liverpool will be the junction where connection to Birmingham and London will be made..
JERSEY AIRWAYS I93.6 PLANS.
THE Plymouth-Jersey air service inaugurated in June and later suspended—not from lack of bookings but because the operators, Jersey Airways, found difficulty in supplying sufficient machines for both Heston and Southampton and Plymouth services—is, we learn, to be re-established early next year on a regular schedule. There is a possibility of a linking-up service between Jersey and Paris, and, quite independently, a Plymouth-Paris service may come into operation in 1936.