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Aviation History
1935
1935 - 0278.PDF
136 FLIGHT. FEBRUARY 7, 1935. upon askance as a discreditable action for which apologies must be broadcast. It will merely enhance the common strength of the new security league. In fact, the combined air forces of the signatories will bear some resemblance to that international air force for which many have sighed as the ideal form of armament. All commentators have laid stress on the point that Britain and Italy will gain an advantage from this pact which they did not gain from the original Locarno Treaty. By that they were bound to give help, but no one else was bound to help them. If this agreement comes into being all the signatories are equally eligible for help if attacked by one of the other signatories. Not since Waterloo has Britain had the security of her islands guarded by such powerful allies, and between the conditions of 1815 and 1935 there is no comparison. If this agreement is signed, British citizens no less than French citizens may sleep the sounder at night. Seaplane o ervices ASPECIAL article on another page pleads for a greater use of flying boats on our Empire air . lines. It is a fact that the British Empire has grown up mostly round seaport settlements, such as Madras, Calcutta, Bombay, Singapore, Sydney, Mel bourne, Durban, and Capetown. At these seaports can be found the traffic which calls for transport either by sea or by air. Air-line operators want to earn profits and it would seem sound policy for them to connect up these seaports by air. From such premisses the obvious conclusion is the use of seaplanes of the flying- boat class; yet, as a matter of fact, we find our Empire air lines mainly following inland routes and using land- planes. Only on the crossing of the Mediterranean from Europe to Egypt are seaplanes in regular service. The explanation appears to be that when the opera tors mapped out their routes as pioneer efforts, the ter minus seemed to them more important than the inter mediate ports of call. The great thing was to reduce the time taken in getting to Capetown, to India, and to Australia. From that point of view, Karachi became 0! more interest than Bombay, Kisumu more important than Nairobi. The process is easy to understand. More over, air-line operators have certainly shrunk from the use of seaplanes wherever possible, holding them to be less economic than landplanes. That this point of view will gradually change there is little doubt. The efficiency of flying boats is improv ing in all respects, and the modern tendency to use larger and still larger aircraft must mean that in time the cost of special aerodromes for very heavy land- planes will outweigh all the alleged disadvantages of flying boats. Coastal services are then likely to come into their own. Mail services will still need the shortest route, but really large aircraft will be boats. NEW ZEALAND'S CHOICE. Sir James Parr, High Commissioner for New Zealand, last week attended Brooklands for a demon stration of one of the twelve "Vildebeests " which have been ordered for coast defence work. As related on p. 150, Mr-J' Summers, Vickers' chief test pilot, treated Sir James and a large party of visitors to a brilliant display of flying.
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