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Aviation History
1947
1947 - 0934.PDF
542 FLIGHT JUNE IZTH, 1947 POTENTIALITIES OF THE GREAT EAST come in to Britain from abroad, from Cairo eastwards.) I must add he was (a) an experienced air traveller, both as , pilot and passenger; and (b) he was entirely biased in favour of British goods, not in the least because he was, as are most other Englishmen, short of American dollars. After a close examination of the market as I knew it, and I suspect he knew far better than I, the admission was reluctantly forced that no British or even European aircraft filled the category he required. It had to be metal; it had to have a range of over 1,000 miles; it had to be reasonably fast, i.e., none of that Catalina crawl stuff; it had to be multi-engined. But the real catch came in main- tenance—for although the Dove and the Marathon might well have fitted the bill, ami been welcome, the engine overhaul period seemed to him too short for useful life between periods of absence. No, he couldn't afford two or three aircraft, he wanted one good one for himself. And the answer was that the only British aircraft which suited the flying and maintenance characteristics he required seemed to be a Beaufighter, though how you turn a Beaufighter into a Beau Brummel personal plane I don't pretend to guess. The next significant talk was with the Director of Civil Aviation, Malaya. Among other things he made a sur- prising statement, an eye- opener statement. Whatever the cause, he said, the in- disputable fact is that the East as a whole has tacitly accepted air transport. Before the war, only a very small percentage of orientals flew or even thought of flying. To- day, with their memories of flying in the war, with the cumulative effect of press reports, radio news on aviation and especially the incalculably great influence of the films, the Orient has now accepted flying as being as normal as njotor cars, ships and trains. Seventy per cent of the ordinary passengers today are orientals. This statement seems to me of the greatest significance. With 200,000,000 potential customers in the Great East, and 400,000,000 in China alone, to say nothing of Siam, Burma, Indo-China, the air traffic potential of the Orient is something far greater than the whole of Europe and North America. Indications of this appreciation that in the near future •the East will increasingly use airways can be seen in the new companies springing up. Apart from B.O.A.C. and Qantas and the important British charter companies such as Skyways and Silver City Airways (which, incidentally. At Kallang Airport, Singapore. Overnight halt—maintenance crews of Qantas get busy, preparing for the next day's run—Batavia, Darwin, Sydney. The Lancastrian cruises at 240 m.p.h. for easily more than 2,000 miles. has powerful Australian backing and under Air Commodore " Taffy ""Powell is growing like the magic beanstalk) the traveller can see the trend of the future in the newly established Malayan Airways (backed by the Fred. Holt shipping people and officially recognized by the Malayan Government); Orient Airways; Burma Airways; and, of course, the great companies of K.L.M. and K.N.I.L.M. Nevertheless, although the promise is great, the achieve- ments so far are small. The crying demand for air links, for passengers and freight, in the East Indies points the way to a sort of Seven Seas Corporation though that may politi- cally be asking too much in these corny days. The third conversa- tion at the '' summer palace" mess of the, R.N. Air Station at Sembawang (about 12 miles from Singapore) concerned the Navy's air transport service for the East—one nice •little Auster. Of course, base and squadron Firefly air- craft are available for air transport of selected Kallang Airport, Singa- pore. A magnificent ex- ample of municipal enter- prise.
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