SEAPLANE CRUISE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 227, 25 September 1928, Page 7

SEAPLANE CRUISE.

TOUR OF EAST. Practical Test For British Flying Boat. AIR OFFICIAL'S PLAN. (British Official WirelPßs.) (Received 12.30 p.m.) RUGBY, September 24. The Under-Secretary of State for Air, Sir Philip Sassoon, will leave England by air on September 29 to visit the Royal Air Force stations in Malta, Middle East, Iraq and India. The. route to be followed will be: Plymiouth, Marseilles, Naples, Athens and Cairo, whence the visit will be made by air to the Air Force squadron at Khartoum, Amman, Bagdad, the Persian Gulf and Karachi. The type of aircraft employed for the greater part of the tour will be a Blackburn Iris flying boat, with three Rolls Royce Condor engines and manned by a normal service crew. This is the latest type of flying boat adopted by the Royal Air Force, and it is desired to obtain experience of its capabilities on an extended cruise under varying i climatic conditions. Sir Philip Sassoon will spend nine days in India and will inspect the Air Force squadrons in that country. He will leave Karachi on October 24 for England in the Iris, which is due at Plymouth on November 6. On the return journey Sir Philip Sassoon will visit Malta. MAIL 'PLANE FOUND. MISSING FRENCHMEN. (Australian and N.Z. Press Association.) PARIS, September 24. A message from Casablanca, Morocco, yesterday said a French mail-carrying aeroplane flying in the regular service to Dakar, was missing. News has now been received that the airmen have been I found. They are not hurt and the 'plane I is not damaged.