AIR TRANSPORT NEWS
Page 35
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HILLMANS AND LikITED AIRWAYS: JOINT EFFORT.
TT is understood that Hillmans AirI ways, Ltd., and United Airways, Ltd., are working out details of a plan to TIM a joint daily service between London. Amsterdam and Berlin. They have also been in touch with the Norwegian authorities and the Norwegian air lines regarding a joint service between London and Oslo. The need for British services to these Continental destinations is explained in a separate paragraph, and this news follows quickly upon the visit which Colonel F. C. Shelmerdine, DirectorGeneral of Civil Aviation, has just paid to Scandinavia.
The combination is strong, because Hillmans Airways, Ltd., is backed hy the D'Erlanger family, with all its international banking resources, and United Airways, Ltd., is backed by Whitehall Securities Corporation, Ltd., which has important financial interests in many commercial fields.
In view of the campaign which The Commercial Motor has conducted for 2/ years to put the air-transport situation clearly. before road-transport operators, it is interesting to see such an important scheme of co-operation developed between the two air-line companies which were started by coach operators, the late Mr. Edward Hillman and Mr. W. L. Thurgood.
100th ATLANTIC CROSSING.
THE flying-boat service, which the Deutsche Lu.ft Hansa (the German Air Line) has flown across the South Atlantic for over a year, completed its 100th crossing between Bathurst and Natal on August 25. On this service, which is flown every week, 14,000
kiloins. are covered in days. So far, about 4,000,000 letters have been carried.
BRITISH EXPERIMENTS IN BLIND APPROACH.
'THERE are good prospects now I that, this autumn, British pilots will have a chance to experiment with blind-approach and landing systems, such as have been tried out in America and are in uSe at Continental airports, including those . of. Berlin, Zurich, Hanover and Munich.
Heston Airport is being extended eastwards to give a landing run of nearly 1,400 yds. in the east-west direction, which is the most suitable for foggy conditions. Short-wave blindlanding equipment will probably be installed there for experiments. Possibly the German Lorenz system, in which the pilot glides down along a radio beam of parabolic contour (guided by dashboard instruments), may be the type chosen.
Meanwhile the British Air Ministry is equipping a Vickers Viastra machine as a kind of flying laboratory and will try out one or two systems using the short wave. The original long-wave beacon is to be re-installed at Croydon (changed from visual to aural indication) and its mast will be at the most 30 ft. high.
Probably the best guide, besides the radio signals, is a line of Neon lights from one end of the landing ground to the, other, with interval marks, the lights being countersunk in the turf. Such a line already exists at Croydon.
COMBINING COACH STATION AND AIRPORT.
WE have often referred in The Commercial Motor to the need for close working arrangements between coach and air-transport operators to obtain the full value out of their association in the field of quick travel. We have published, with illustrations, details of suggested layouts for combined airports and coach stations.
A new arrangement which has been brought into force at Croydon follows fairly closely a system once described in this paper. The much-enlarged Customs hall at Croydon and the improved arrangements for handling passengers have made this necessary. / Passengers arriving by the services of Imperial Airways, Ltd., and by the German, Belgian and Swiss air lines, leave the Customs hall by the north door, whilst passengers travelling by the Netherlands and French services depart by the south door. A special parking place has been allotted to the 30-seater coaches which serve the air liners (many of them operated by United Service Transport, Ltd.) and the vehicles are arranged so that they can quickly draw, out and back down to their respective doorways.
• The new system appears to the visitor to be both orderly and impressive, and often, nowadays, the north side of the airport building and yard looks very much like a modern coach station, NEW CUSTOMS AIRPORTS.
PLYMOUTH (Roborough) and Brighton, Hove arid Worthing Airports have been approved for Customs. In both 'cases, Customs facilities are not continuously available and prior notification should he made to the aerodrome control officer.
CROYDON COMPANY'S FURTHER FLEET INCREASE.
THE Croydon company which runs the Paris Dawn Express and a weekend Le Touquet service, also the Inner Circle connection between Croydon and Heston airports, Commercial Air Hire, Ltd., has just bought an Autogiro, which will be specially kept in readiness for photographic work.
NEW BRITISH LINES NEEDED TO THE CONTINENT.
THE International Air Traffic Association, to which nearly all the subsidized European air-line companies belong, is thinking of putting forward ,to the postal administrations an offer to carry all the first-class mails in Europe by air at a rate of three gold francs per kilog. per 1,000 kilom., a rate which will most likely, within the next year or two, lead to the general use of air transport.
The position of Great Britain is that, if we agreed at once, our mails to many destinations would be carried by foreign air lines, because there are (for instance) no English air lines to Amsterdam, Berlin, Spain, Portugal or Scandinavia. For this reason, there seems to be scope now for our internal air-line companies to form groups strong enough to start Continental services. Quite apart from mails, the passenger traffic is steadily increasing, and there certainly should be British lines to many European centres.
Imperial Airways, Ltd., is fully engaged with Imperial air-line developments, including its scheme to operate flying-boats day and night on fast and frequent services (carrying all first-class mails, passengers and freight) on the Australian and African routes.
So whilst Imperial Airways, Ltd., can probably cope with that part of Europe which comes on or near the Empire routes, separate organizations are thought by many to be necessary for the North European sector.
AIRPORT AT WORCESTER.
THE site of Worcester's proposed airport at Perdiswell Park, Barbourne, has been purchased by the corporation and is now being laid out for the purpose.
NEW IMPERIAL AIRWAYS BRANCH COMPANIES.
AFEW days ago, Imperial Airways (Far East), Ltd., and Imperial Airways (Nigeria and Gold Coast), Ltd., were registered. They are branches of the main company, formed to keep_ the subsidies and accounts separate, ad they 'will operate the branch lines to Hong Kong and across from Khartoum to West Africa... Both of these lines will probably he opened before the winter.
NOw a third subsidiary, Imperial Airways (Continental), Ltd., has been formed. This does not mean that big extensions are intended in Europe, but the new concern will eventually take over all the European services of Imperial Airways, Ltd., which, in matters of mail contracts, subsidies and pooling arrangements with foreign companies, are a proposition quite distinct from that of the services in and to Empire countries.