GROWING AIR-MINDED.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 57, Issue 255, 9 August 1937, Page 8

GROWING AIR-MINDED.

JAPANESE ATTITUDE A wealthy Osaka business man, Mr J. Terada, has given £50,000 for the establishment of an aeronautical research institute and also intends to lay down a /plant for the manufacture of Japanese aircraft, says the “Daily Telegraph.’ 5 This followed the successful flight from Tokio to London of the Divine Wind, the Japanese machine built from foreign designs, and is a good illustration of the remarkable manner in which Japan has been stirred by the performance. When .the machine landed at Croydon the nation “threw its hat into the air.” A special song dedicated to the machine was to be heard in every cafe and other public place, even being blared forth on the streets from loudspeakers. All of this is of some interest, m itself, but of much deeper significance is the fact that this one spectacular flight has made the Japanese air-con-scious. With a reputation abroad for being poor aviators, the victory of the Divine Wind—and to the Japanese people it is truly a “victory”—-has come as a joyful awakening and a. proof that, after all, they may attain to a position of air equality. Off World Air Tracks The Government has announced that a trial flight from Japan to its mandated islands in the Pacific will he undertaken this year, and that- next year a regular commercial service will be inaugurated. By the end of the summer, it is stated, more than tliuty airports will have been built by combined municipal funds and private contributions. Other developments may be expected in the immediate future. There remains one great barrier to Japan taking a high place in commercial aviation, however, and that is the consistent refusal of the Defence Services to permit foreign aircraft to land on Japanese soil or in Japanese tenitorial waters. The result is that Japan is most definitely off the aerial routes of the world. Both the transpacific and Asia-Australian-Europe air routes pass far to the south of the Japanese Empire.